One week until classes begin
Introductory week began today at the University of Montreal.
This is the period before classes begin when students get to know the university, their instructors, the activities on offer and, of course, their classmates. Even those studying online, like me, haven’t been left out. Today I attended a meeting where our program coordinators shared important details and explained how our studies would be organized throughout the year.
During this time I have to take ten courses. Each course includes three hours of online classes per week and seven hours of independent study. In the first fall term, I am enrolled in five courses, which means fifteen hours of studying in Zoom and thirty-five hours of reading materials in two languages and completing various tasks that I do not yet fully understand. There will be four courses in winter, and only one in summer.
Naturally, there are also minimum performance requirements‼, and I really hope that I can meet them.
What I especially liked is that all training will take place on the university platform. All documents and textbooks will be available online, and classes will be held through Zoom - a platform with which I am very familiar and work regularly.
Despite the fact that a lot became clear, we were still sent a detailed document in which everything was explained down to the smallest detail. I plan to start studying it tomorrow. I'm going to need to get everything organized in my head again, because right now planning is what I need most to stay on track and start panicking about the huge workload that will begin next week.
Interesting things: I found out what the competition for admission was like. This information was not available in advance on the websites, and I spent a long time trying to find it. I was really curious if I had a realistic chance of getting into the program. But in the end, I decided to take a risk and was not sent all the documents. It turned out that 1,500 people applied for the fall term, but only 120 were accepted. For me, this is a huge achievement; the competition was about 13 people per place, which is even higher than in graduate school, where I needed a nosebleed for free.
Some funny things: someone asked at a meeting if it was possible to use a translated dictionary in the exam if French is not your native language. I wouldn't dare ask such a question. However, the organizers of the meeting were not surprised and suggested checking with the teacher to see if he would allow it.
Another interesting point is the behavior of students at the meeting. There were about seventy of us, and it was funny to watch those who connected with their torsos naked or asked questions while lying in bed. This is unusual for me, although I heard that this is not uncommon here. I don’t know how to feel about this yet.
In general, this is all I know today. I will keep you updated on developments.
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