University life.

The first difference? The hours. My timetable is effectively, doubled. I have 1/3 more in classes than I had in the UK, with twice as many hours in teaching time. Last semester, classes started at 8am, everyday from Monday to Friday. And at 9.30 am on a Saturday morning. (Believe me, 9.30 am even on a Saturday felt like a lie-in.) Most lectures are three hours' long. The queues for the coffee machines at the Sorbonne at 11am are long. The queues for the toilets? Even longer.

My life now revolves around getting the moyen= 10/20. Before, a pass was 40%. Doing well was a 2.2 - 50%. Doing really well was a 2.1 - 60%. Being exceptional meant 70% and over. These days? Even the exceptional students are becoming pleased with 8/20. We have failed not for our lack of knowledge for the subject, but rather because we didn't conform to the exact méthodologie meaning that the essay will be divided into two parts, I and II and then further subdivided into IA and IB, IIA and IIB. Content is irrelevant. Style? Everything.

Not that I've been able to maintain a sense of style too much. Whilst I believe that it is wonderful that university education is essentially, free here, the system does not fail so much on that point as it does letting (for all intents and purposes) everyone who has their bac in. The result? Not only scores of students unwilling to do sweet FA at uni but too many of us for the administration to be able to deal with. * The result at face value is quite often, having to sit in a lecture, on the floor. Sometimes, there's no floor space left. Fast forward ten weeks to the exam period and there are no seats to sit in for an exam. There is not only no seat available for 50% of the students but during the exam, two of the inviligators tie up another with sellotape.

From the sublime to the ridiculous.


*I'm not advocating that any other university entrance system is any better, but there has to be a compromise somewhere.