Another day at the Faculté de Nantes...

I didn't take this picture, just found it online. It was already labled: 'Ugly Nantes' but really I think it is far more attractive than the University really is, if you can believe it.

Today I went to the University for my class on Poe and other writers of strange literature. I am currently concerned that I might not get to take this class, despite the fact that it's perfect for me and my schedule, because there are currently 7 IES students in the class (the cap typically being no more than 5 per University class). I am trying not to worry about it, and plan on talking to my IES Registrar as soon as she is available.

The class was very interesting today, and I think if I am allowed to continue taking it, it will prove wonderful.

I still, however, cannot help getting frustrated everytime I go to the University. The American and French education systems could not be more different, and I have found no where a more blatant difference between French and American (or at least, Nantaise and Sewanee) mentalities than the University cafeteria.

I will explain.

My classroom was built to contain around 50 students. Because there are no registration limits at the University, we had around 56 or so, all of whom had to go find chairs elsewhere or sit on the floor. The professor spoke quietly and quickly, and while I could understand him much better than the previous class I took at the University, I was really surprised by how many students talked while he spoke. It was frustrating to the extreme, though he didn't seem too dismayed and spoke over them as best he could.

I find the education system in France a bit bizarr: students pick a study upon entering their first year and take classes only within that discipline. So if I were a French student, I would have started at the university, chosen to study literature and then taken only literature courses for the remainder of the four years or so I attended. I would not, as was the case in reality, been able to take lots of fascinating classes outside my major (and how sad that would have been! three of my favorite classes at Sewanee have been Fairy Tales, a German class, and Geology and Biology - none of which apply to either of my majors!)

Additionally, while the University is practically free for all students (around 300 dollars a year) and has a 100% acceptance and admittance rate, more than half of the students do not pass their first year! That's an absurd amount of students.

BUT what I dislike the most is the cafeteria, where I ate lunch today. Granted, at Sewanee I'm accustomed to a cafeteria that more closesly resembles a cathedral it's so grand; still, I found today quite schocking. In order to get food, students swarm around the cafeteria in a fashion entirely befitting a mob. Hanna, Olivia and I waited in said hoard for around 15 minutes today, being pushed and prodded this way and that, with the crowd fifteen-thirty people thick to the left or right and extending thirty feet or so in front and behind. It was crazy! I've heard they don't make lines in France, but really? I started feeling extremely light headed and cloistrophobic, especially when I finally made it to the stairwell leading to the cafeteria which was jam packed and at a stand still and dark and too too cramped.

Nothing could be farther from Sewanee.

But, depite the fact that this entry feels a bit like a rant, I will say that the University is the only place I feel indignant or disapointed or anything, and that I am going to try and divine the merits of this system as well.