Okay, not so exciting post round two.

I'm taking classes at three local schools:

1) La Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA/University of Buenos Aires)
2) La Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO/Latin American Department of Social Sciences)
3) La Universidad Catolica Argentina (UCA/Catholic University of Argentina)

All three of these schools are very different experiences.

UBA
At UBA I'm taking two courses:

"International Security"
"Urban and Social Processes: The City in Theory."

Both courses have very well-renowned professors, but given that this is the Argentine school system they literally have never stepped foot into the classroom. Instead a series of assistant professors (who are obviously qualified) teach the courses.

Walking into UBA is an experience in and of itself. Given that UBA is a school of 300,000+ students and is free for Argentine citizens, there are dozens of locations around Buenos Aires and the most eclectic group of students I've ever seen. I take classes in the main Social Sciences building as well as in the Public Health Building. The latter isn't overly exciting but the Social Sciences building is crazy.

Through my group I had a two-week shopping period in which I could try out whatever classes I wanted to at four different schools (the 4th being IUNA, an art school; also Argentine students don't have any shopping period). Now as a typically enrolled UBA student I would have access to their internet that shows where each class is located. Yet as an exchange student I had to guess which building my class was in and of course guessed wrong...the first two times. I arrived at the social sciences building the first time only to see a mass of students frantically buying notebooks and pens from street vendors on their way to class. They then ran over to a list about 10 feet in front of the door which listed every social science class, its building, and its room. Of course my first two classes weren't on there.

The big surprise at UBA (though I suppose it shouldn't be much of a surprise), however, is the socialist propaganda everywhere. Literally.




People are yelling outside the building, and in the foyer of the Social Sciences building are a number of stands where people representing different socialist organizations on "campus" are advertising themselves. Posters hang from every wall and ceiling in addition to people painting the walls...yes, during class time (though I haven't seen it while in a class). While in class, however, students will open the door and politely ask the teacher to have a moment of the classes time to spread their message. In both my classes the professors have said yes every time, including last week when there were UBA elections, meaning that I had about 7 interruptions in my International Security course.





Additionally, UBA professors are rarely on time...entering the classroom consistently 15-30 minutes late. They give their classes, which thus far have been very impressive, and then leave--so getting to speak with a professor is more difficult than in the US and they don't have office hours (this is generally because the teachers don't receive great salaries so they teach as a side job or teach many many classes). Each class at UBA has a two-hour long Teorico (Theory portion) taught by the professor, followed by a two-hour Practico (Discussion group) taught by teaching assistants. There is often no class plan for the Practico, but the students always have questions to ask and we almost always stay for the entire two hours.



Even with a 20 minute break, four hour classes are brutal. I have to buy a coffee or mate between the Teorico and Practico or it's simply impossible to stay focused.

FLACSO
Given that my program is a collaboration between CIEE and FLACSO, FLACSO is essentially the home base of the group. It's about a half-block building directly in the center of the city with a cafe, computer lab, and classrooms. Usually FLACSO is only for graduate students but for our program an exception is made. Classes at FLACSO are only for CIEE/FLACSO students and have much less of a culture-shock factor given that the professors always arrive on time and the classrooms are clean. FLACSO is definitely a middle ground between the 3 schools. At FLACSO I'm taking:

"Seminar on the Argentine Reality"
"Seminar on Service and Learning"
"Intensive Grammar Improvement"
"Listening and Conversation in Spanish"

The Seminar on Argentine Reality is really interesting, giving me a background history of Argentina in addition to an in-depth look at many aspects of Argentine society. The Service and Learning Seminar has only a 1 1/2 hour per week class, and is instead made up mostly through volunteering/interning at an organization of choice. In my case I'm interning at Intercambios, an organization that fights the spread of AIDS and strives to reduce drug-related problems. Honestly there are other issues that interest more but I wanted to work for a real Argentine organization (as opposed to Help Argentina or Idealistas which are US initiatives) so this was my best option. The Spanish courses are pretty straight-forward...as long as I'm here I need to bulk up on Spanish as much as I can.

UCA
This place is the other end of the spectrum from UBA. It's got a gorgeous location on the water in Puerto Madero and is the only of the three schools to have any form of campus. It's also a private school. Because an UBA education is free in Argentina, only the very wealthy students that want to avoid UBA take courses there...and I say this in comparison to my New England prep-school; UCA is much worse. In my case UCA is included in my program so money was not an issue, and I'm not taking any courses with UCA students so I'm not affected by the demographic of people. It is a Catholic school which for me also takes getting used to; there is a cross in each room and a strict dress code (no shorts or sandals among other things--going to be a real problem when it gets hot here).

At UCA I'm taking only one course in the PEL department (Programa de Estudios Latinoamericanos), one in which only exchange students can take classes. The course is called

"Peronism"

and is very interesting for me because, for those of you who don't know, Peronism is the political following of Juan Peron and Eva Maria Duarte Peron (Evita...yes, like the play) and is entirely unique to Argentina and its nationalist pride. The class has students from many parts of the world--New Zealand, Panama, Colombia, England, France, Ecuador, etc--and really shows the thought process behind everything Argentines do.

Overall the courses are good, though because they're so different it's hard to get accustomed to each of them. A couple of the reading in my UBA classes are in English (I guess students there are mandated to know some English), and usually those are some of the denser readings which is nice. I think that's about it...I've definitely learned a lot about Argentina through going to class here.