Academics: The Unexpected

I started my school semester at Universidad Pablo de Olavide on January 24rd of this year. We had an orientation day on January 23rd where we were introduced to the school board and given our class schedules. The first couples of weeks we had the opportunity to add and drop classes. The classes I am taking include Spanish Culture and Society, Medical Anthropology, Intermediate Spanish II, and Communications and Media in the Digital Age. On the first week of school I was also taking History of Spanish Art, but I dropped that class right away. I am taking all of my classes in English except for Intermediate Spanish II, that is being taught to me in Spanish.

A "fun" story I have to tell about the first day of classes is about the History of Spanish Art class. I had the class in the morning right after my 9:00am Spanish class and I had walked in and sat down and wanted to take a quick bit of my croissant that I had boughten earlier in the morning before class officially began. When I took it out and started to bite into it, the professor looked at me and yelled, "are you seriously eating a huge sandwich right now?" and I nervously responded with yes, not knowing what the rules were in Spanish classes. He said I could not do that and to put my food away. He then carried on and asked if I had eaten breakfast and I said no and then he said, "well that's your fault". Um, rude, but okay. And for the rest of class he continued to pick on me and kid about me having no friends. Like, what kind of professor does that?

In Spain, it is super uncommon and frowned upon to eat in class. I did not know this because it was the first day of classes and no one had told me about this rule yet. In retrospect, I should have maybe been more culturally sensitive and ask about eating in a classroom. I do think the professor could have been nicer about informing me though.

Other than the food thing, I did not have too many other surprises or unexpected experiences. Although, I do think my classes here are a bit easier than classes at NAU. This is probably because I am not taking any chemistry, biology, or physics classes, which are usually my most difficult courses.