studentsineurope

Figuring Out the System at University College Cork

I realized that things were different on my first day. I was standing in line with a bunch of other study-abroad students waiting to get my student ID when it struck me that we were all American.

“Where are the other international students,” I wondered. For that matter, where were the Irish students?

It turned out that University College Cork didn’t start classes until October and the class I was about to take was set up specifically to facilitate study abroad programs for American students. Knowing that American universities usually start in September, UCC created several month-long classes so American students could study abroad but still maintain their usual schedules. Sadly, it was going to be a whole thirty days before I got to meet the guys with the really cute accents.

The different academic schedule was only the first of many differences I had to adapt to during my study abroad program. The second big difference I ran into was that university administration wasn’t centralized. When regular classes began in October, I went to the main administration building to file my paperwork. I then made the rookie mistake of asking for a class schedule.

“You can get class schedules at the main department buildings,” the lady behind the desk told me.

“Okay. Where can I find the English Department?”

The lady turned to her colleague: “Do you know where the English Department is?”

“No, sorry.” The lady turned back to me.

“Sorry, love. Don’t know.”

So I spent two days seeking out 1.) a map of the city 2.) a list of the addresses of department buildings 3.) the office hours of the departments (which were also not standardized across the university). The department buildings were spread out all over the city and it often took half an hour to walk between them – sometimes more. When I finally managed to collect lists of the classes I might want to take in English, Music, and History, I found that they all conflicted. When they didn’t conflict, there was no possible way to get from the building where one class was being taught all the way across town to the building where the next class was being taught and arrive on time. In the end, my schedule was dictated more by what I could get to than what I wanted to take.

By the time I has adapted to the lack of a centralized campus and the lack of communication among departments, I had to adapt to different expectations in assignments. My worst moment was when I had to write a five-page paper for a history class. The assignment was very broad, so I narrowed it down to a specific question like I had been taught back home. When I got my paper back, I received a very low grade and the comment “you failed to discuss many aspects of the topic.” Which was true, but how could I discuss them all in five pages!

In spite of my frequent frustration at how different UCC was from my American university, my study abroad experience was one of the best things I’ve ever done. I learned a lot, both in and out of the classroom, but one of the most important things I learned was that there are many ways to do the same thing. The sooner you stop expecting study abroad to be like home, the sooner you’ll be able to enjoy what it is.