Clash of the Semesters
19:36 |
| Credit: Helge Øverås, http://www.helgeoveras.com/concertphoto.shtml |
As of January 13th 2014, I am officially a student at three different universities: University of Bristol, from where I will (hopefully) be receiving my Bachelor's degree, Université Aix-Marseille, where I am currently writing this post, and Universita degli Studi di Pavia, where I spent the last semester and to where I will be returning to sit three exams in a few days' time.
You might be thinking, "Hang on, that sounds needlessly complicated and completely avoidable." And you'd be right. It is. The entire ordeal has been the result of an administrative cock-up of Dr Strangelove proportions. Some people might say that comparing an overlap of over a month between term dates to a nuclear holocaust is excessive. To these people, I respond that the events of Kubrick's apocalyptic satirical masterpiece were not real, unlike the 3 bus journeys lasting 9 hours apiece that I have to embark upon to complete both my Erasmus placements. I have yet to have a medical professional confirm this but I'm pretty sure that the rise in my blood pressure resulting from the stress caused by this issue is real as well.
Semester dates in various European countries differ quite drastically to what I had imagined. Where the second French semesters start close to the beginning of January, the Germans still haven't finished their first and won't be beginning their second until around April. Stupidly, I assumed that my university wouldn't allow me to sign up for two universities with conflicting term dates and worked on the principle that the lack of communication that there would be an issue with my placement meant that everything was going according to plan. This was a mistake. My university actually had no idea that there was an overlap in my semester dates until I told them about it and the response I got when I wrote to them asking for advice was, "Oh. Well, that's going to be a problem for you." Quite frankly they were fortunate that this didn't happen to a less mentally stable person or there could have been serious bloodshed. I suspect this is why I wasn't told until the Easter holidays when I was 150 miles away from Bristol.
I know for a fact that other British universities have specified that their students must ensure that there aren't any clashes in the calendars of the universities they want to apply for. Some even specify to students that if they want to study in France and Italy that they should go to France first as most of the universities begin and end on similar dates. Others put the onus on the students to figure this out for themselves and clearly my university is one of these. Whether it's actually my fault for not thinking to look up this information myself is irrelevant because even if I am wrong I won't admit to it. After ranting, raving, composing angry e-mails, deleting angry e-mails from my Drafts folder because I'm too scared to have a go at the people who sort out my Erasmus grant for me, bitching on Facebook and feeling sorry for myself proved not to particularly help my situation, I decided to sort out the problem rather than just let it ruin my life or hope someone else might do it for me.
Other Bristol students have had this problem in the past and there seemed to be a few potential solutions. One of these is arriving to the second university late. This really depends on the institution at which one is spending the second semester and the staff of Université Aix-Marseille were not particularly keen on this idea. Whether they might have relented had I pushed harder will remain a mystery; attempting to persuade French teachers to do something they don't want to do takes a level of eloquence and bravery that I am fully willing to admit that I do not possess.
Another is to simply not sit any exams. I hate people for whom this is an option and I would be willing to put money on me not being the only person to take this attitude. Aware that my grades on Erasmus have no impact on my degree, I asked my tutor if this would be a possibility for me. She did not react very positively. Not only are exams considered a big part of the study abroad placement at Bristol, they're pretty much the only way to reliably prove I went to my classes as most tutors at Italian universities don't take attendance. Other universities require a pass mark in all exams taken abroad, and others actually count Erasmus grades towards final degree marks. This option is really only open to a select few people and I am not among them. I was also unable to change the dates of my exams to sit them early, although I can't say I was particularly unhappy about not having to sit four exams in as many days.
The final option is to do a bit of strategic travelling in order to miss as few classes and exams as possible. This was the most obvious option for me. Northern Italy and southern France are not that far apart and it soon transpired that, even though there were no cheap flights from Milan to Marseilles, I had a few options for getting to Aix and back at minimal expense. I looked into trains, mostly due to the temptation to take another train journey through the Alps following my trip to Geneva, which consisted of me gawping, awe-struck, through the window at a stunning view of mountains and lakes for 4 hours. Unfortunately the timetables meant I'd have to take an overnight stop in Geneva and I wouldn't even save that much money compared to flights, which is how I have ended up taking the journey by bus. While the length of the journey renders the day you travel a total write-off (it takes somewhere between eight and ten hours, depending on traffic and delays), the lure of being able to travel from Lombardy to Provence for 19€ proved stronger than the lure of general comfort and so this is the mode of transport that I chose. It actually didn't prove that unpleasant in the end, especially seeing as I was one of only three people on the bus and the company I went for provided free WiFi.
So, it turns out that my initial predictions of my year abroad being completely ruined were proven false and what I thought was a huge disaster turned out to be a mild inconvenience. I still have to miss a week of classes in France and waste three days of my life on a bus, but this feels like a small price to pay to assuage the fear that I'm not going to accidentally invalidate my year abroad by not sitting any exams and fail my entire degree. Plus this way I still get to spend my summer in the south of France, which is the sole reason I chose to go to Aix in the second semester in the first place.
You might be thinking, "Hang on, that sounds needlessly complicated and completely avoidable." And you'd be right. It is. The entire ordeal has been the result of an administrative cock-up of Dr Strangelove proportions. Some people might say that comparing an overlap of over a month between term dates to a nuclear holocaust is excessive. To these people, I respond that the events of Kubrick's apocalyptic satirical masterpiece were not real, unlike the 3 bus journeys lasting 9 hours apiece that I have to embark upon to complete both my Erasmus placements. I have yet to have a medical professional confirm this but I'm pretty sure that the rise in my blood pressure resulting from the stress caused by this issue is real as well.
Semester dates in various European countries differ quite drastically to what I had imagined. Where the second French semesters start close to the beginning of January, the Germans still haven't finished their first and won't be beginning their second until around April. Stupidly, I assumed that my university wouldn't allow me to sign up for two universities with conflicting term dates and worked on the principle that the lack of communication that there would be an issue with my placement meant that everything was going according to plan. This was a mistake. My university actually had no idea that there was an overlap in my semester dates until I told them about it and the response I got when I wrote to them asking for advice was, "Oh. Well, that's going to be a problem for you." Quite frankly they were fortunate that this didn't happen to a less mentally stable person or there could have been serious bloodshed. I suspect this is why I wasn't told until the Easter holidays when I was 150 miles away from Bristol.
I know for a fact that other British universities have specified that their students must ensure that there aren't any clashes in the calendars of the universities they want to apply for. Some even specify to students that if they want to study in France and Italy that they should go to France first as most of the universities begin and end on similar dates. Others put the onus on the students to figure this out for themselves and clearly my university is one of these. Whether it's actually my fault for not thinking to look up this information myself is irrelevant because even if I am wrong I won't admit to it. After ranting, raving, composing angry e-mails, deleting angry e-mails from my Drafts folder because I'm too scared to have a go at the people who sort out my Erasmus grant for me, bitching on Facebook and feeling sorry for myself proved not to particularly help my situation, I decided to sort out the problem rather than just let it ruin my life or hope someone else might do it for me.
Other Bristol students have had this problem in the past and there seemed to be a few potential solutions. One of these is arriving to the second university late. This really depends on the institution at which one is spending the second semester and the staff of Université Aix-Marseille were not particularly keen on this idea. Whether they might have relented had I pushed harder will remain a mystery; attempting to persuade French teachers to do something they don't want to do takes a level of eloquence and bravery that I am fully willing to admit that I do not possess.
Another is to simply not sit any exams. I hate people for whom this is an option and I would be willing to put money on me not being the only person to take this attitude. Aware that my grades on Erasmus have no impact on my degree, I asked my tutor if this would be a possibility for me. She did not react very positively. Not only are exams considered a big part of the study abroad placement at Bristol, they're pretty much the only way to reliably prove I went to my classes as most tutors at Italian universities don't take attendance. Other universities require a pass mark in all exams taken abroad, and others actually count Erasmus grades towards final degree marks. This option is really only open to a select few people and I am not among them. I was also unable to change the dates of my exams to sit them early, although I can't say I was particularly unhappy about not having to sit four exams in as many days.
The final option is to do a bit of strategic travelling in order to miss as few classes and exams as possible. This was the most obvious option for me. Northern Italy and southern France are not that far apart and it soon transpired that, even though there were no cheap flights from Milan to Marseilles, I had a few options for getting to Aix and back at minimal expense. I looked into trains, mostly due to the temptation to take another train journey through the Alps following my trip to Geneva, which consisted of me gawping, awe-struck, through the window at a stunning view of mountains and lakes for 4 hours. Unfortunately the timetables meant I'd have to take an overnight stop in Geneva and I wouldn't even save that much money compared to flights, which is how I have ended up taking the journey by bus. While the length of the journey renders the day you travel a total write-off (it takes somewhere between eight and ten hours, depending on traffic and delays), the lure of being able to travel from Lombardy to Provence for 19€ proved stronger than the lure of general comfort and so this is the mode of transport that I chose. It actually didn't prove that unpleasant in the end, especially seeing as I was one of only three people on the bus and the company I went for provided free WiFi.
So, it turns out that my initial predictions of my year abroad being completely ruined were proven false and what I thought was a huge disaster turned out to be a mild inconvenience. I still have to miss a week of classes in France and waste three days of my life on a bus, but this feels like a small price to pay to assuage the fear that I'm not going to accidentally invalidate my year abroad by not sitting any exams and fail my entire degree. Plus this way I still get to spend my summer in the south of France, which is the sole reason I chose to go to Aix in the second semester in the first place.
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