Universidad Alberto Hurtado

Last Thursday was the 1^st official day of classes at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, my Chilean university. I only had one class that day and had no classes Friday or today so I still feel like I’m on vacation mode. Tomorrow marks the start of reality because I will then have three days of classes in a row. Not that I can really complain since those three days of class are my only three days of class all week! I don’t mean to compare apples and oranges, but in Spain we were in class from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. It was awful. I know we are supposed to be abroad for the whole purpose of actually studying but personally I find immersing yourself in a brand new culture, in a brand new city to be far more important and beneficial than sitting in your average classroom, identical to the one at home. After seven hours in the classroom plus homework hours plus volunteer hours, it was impossible to explore the city other than on the weekends we weren’t traveling, which were few and far between.

            Here in Santiago, my schedule will be three hours of class on Tuesday, three hours on Wednesday and three hours on Thursday. I’m taking three classes total at UAH (one per day) but since one of my courses is technically worth two and I’m taking travel reporting online, that makes a total of five classes all together.

Main building in the UAH courtyard

           

At some point volunteer work will be factored in (it is a program requirement as well as a component to one of my university classes) but that won’t be for another month or so. Even with all that, you get the picture that I have a lot more free time to explore all that Santiago and the surrounding area has to offer. I already feel like I know it better than I ever knew Madrid or Alcalá and I’ve been here less than a month!

            The class I had last Thursday is called Poverty and Development (Pobreza y Desarollo) and it examines and analyzes the question “is it possible to overcome poverty?”. The class will discuss poverty in Chile as well in other parts of the world. The first day all we  accomplished were our names, where we were from, and what we were studying but this Thursday will start to feel more like class because the professor has already assigned some readings for us to discuss. My professor's name is Isabel and I find her to be fantastic. She knows our exchange program inside and out and knows how to help the foreign students achieve success in her class because she used to be the program director! The way she talks slowly and restates things in various ways to fully ensure our understanding is super considerate and effective.

Chile has a really interesting system where at registration, you sign up for more classes than you need (I've yet to hear of a single person not getting into a class they wanted, which is extraordinary to me coming from Loyola!) Students then have about a month to attend (or not attend) as many of these classes as they want to simply "try them out". The administration here feels that it is important for you to make sure that you like the class content, that you can get along with the teacher, and that the rigor of the class won't be too difficult. After a month, you add/drop courses until you have a perfect schedule that fits your needs. It takes away a lot of stress like "Will I like the teacher? Will there be too much homework? Is this really what I'm interested in taking?" More to come with my first impressions of my other classes and professors and if this probationary system really works!