Legitimacy!
At long last! I am using my brain for things besides figuring out how to get from point A to point B with the fewest metro transfers. Last week I started my master's, and hence my legitimate personhood (as opposed to tourist-hood) here in Barcelona. One thing is for sure, I'm not at Pomona anymore..
The good news:
Breadth The University of Barcelona takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the master's. We learn about the religious, health, anthropological, sociological, historical, political, and other -al ...aspects of immigration. Which means I will have a really good sense of the issue by the time I'm done. Also, each class is taught by a different professor, so we get exposure to a lot of personalities and teaching styles.
The crew There are only 11 students in the program (sadly only one dude). We've got some real diversity of age, professional background, religion, and nationality. Unlike in undergrad where you never know if a classmate will run off and work for entrenched, moneyed interests, everyone is genuinely interested in finding a more just solution to our (Catalunya's, Spain's, the US', the world's) perpetual immigration woes.
The building ..is gorgeous. During the day it's part of Barcelona's contemporary culture center. It's got art, style, and history (it used to be an orphanage). See for yourself
The less-than-stellar points:
I am not an empty vessel, thank you Paulo Freire would be rolling over in his grave if he witnessed some of these classes. Without going into the details too much-Freire wrote a book criticizing the "banking" method of education, in which the student is seen as an empty account to be "filled" with knowledge (aka education as mere transmission of facts).
The majority of the Catalan professors talk at us for four straight hours. Only one prof, out of six so far, has asked us our names. Needless to say this is not the type of teaching that I am used to from Pomona, where the classes were alive with discussion and critical thinking. I've already made a comment to the director of the master's, so we'll see what happens. Maybe this is the typical European teaching style? Any advice?
Lack of structure The teachers don't assign readings, they just give us lists of books to read that we can peruse at own our leisure. They don't describe the books, or tell us which one is the most worthwhile out of the 20, the just hand us the bibliography.
The assignments are equally open. We have three papers for the semester--two are 30 pages, and one final paper of 60 pages (btw I've never written more than 15 pages in any language, and only 10 in Spanish). We can write about whatever we want. So many options! So little guidance!
But let's be real: The experience is what you make of it. Just as I adapted to the perpetual professor-strikes at the University of Buenos Aires, I can get used to vertical teaching methods here. More than that--I can make things better. I can be persistent about emailing professors with questions; I can suggest that class be participatory and that they give factual material beforehand; I can learn independently from my internship; I can wear a fatty nametag...
If nothing changes, I can always ditch class, buy a skateboard, go around the corner and join these guys.
Just kidding mom. But hey, it could be a fun extracurricular activity, no? Hasta la proxima vez chicos. I promise to be more regular about writing. School and a visit from my dad distracted me from my blogging duties.
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