First Day at a New School

(I wrote this post last week, please excuse it's dated content)

So our visa to the duty free shop is almost up, which means we’ve been here almost three weeks. Finally time seems to be moving a bit quicker than the eventful day by day that it’s been since we got here. Orientation got me more confused than I was before, and classes have begun. I use the term “begun” loosely because we only have three days of classes this week and the periods themselves are shorter due to Ramadan. After neglecting our laundry in order to attend an international student party (something that vaguely resembled a high school movie after prom event), we had no clean pants for the first day. However, all was not lost, and we put together our ceremonial first-day-of-school outfits and headed off to catch the bus.

I’m going to pause my narrative for just a moment and take this brief paragraph to complain about just how freaking stupid American University of Cairo is. I understand that I’m a little challenged when it comes to following directions and orienting myself on a map, but the AUC campus is a whole different kind of maze. My first class was in the BEC building. Guess what? There is no BEC on the map. Not only that, but even if there were a BEC on the map, I wouldn’t know how to get there because their strategically placed guiding maps don’t show where YOU are. A small detail that I find rather imperative.  I have become slightly better at navigating the campus, since I put everything in relation to the on-campus Cinnabon.

I applied for my classes back at the beginning of the summer, and I was so excited to find out that I was scheduled for nine communications credits, even though I can only transfer six. My other two classes were Financial Accounting 101 and Introduction to Microeconomics. Riveting stuff, right? Upon receiving my schedule, I realized that there was really no reason for me to be in Egypt, since these were all courses that were offered at American University in Washington D.C..

My first class, Media Management, is a course on how different branches of media converge. I am the only American in the class, and it added a new dynamic to learning. I don’t think I realized when I signed up to come to Egypt exactly how different the media is in this country. The professor, or “doctor” as they call them here was fascinated by my nationality. Whenever he had a fact about the United States, he would ask me if I knew if first (i.e. what is the circulation of the Washington Post or how many FM radio stations are there in NYC…etc). Of course I knew none of the answers, but my rough estimates weren’t too far off if you squinted. The majority of the media, here in Egypt is actually run by the government. This is such a strange concept to me. There are only nine radio stations in the entire country and the daily circulation of all the newspapers combined is only 3 million readers. It is also obvious that because of this, the media majors here at AUC have been given a very different education as to how to address the world of publication.

It was difficult to follow my professor at times. He would occasionally slip into Arabic, but he was always aware of me and would ask me if I understood. When I shook my head he would just tell me that it was unimportant anyways. I am really looking forward to the class, even though I am now in a new section do to scheduling conflicts. I’m hoping that my new class is just as interesting. My second class, Introduction to Photography, will no longer be on my schedule. The professor was well traveled, a University of Texas graduate who was a photographer on the staff of Time Magazine for the better part of a decade. However, he spent most of the class, plus fifteen minutes over time telling us how there was no excuse to being unprepaired and how his accomplishments were amazing and unless an immediate family member died there was no reason to miss INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOGRAPHY THE MOST IMPORTANT CLASS EVER. I should also mention that he did not have the syllabus or the homework assignment and made us all follow him to his office after class and wait ten minutes in the hallway while he had it printed and photocopied. I’m not a huge fan of pompous, hypocritical professors, nor do I have any desire really to spend $3,000 on an introduction to photography course.

Today was a bit of a discouraging day because I had to deal with my schedule for a large part of it. It’s not easy dropping five courses and adding all new ones. I attended my Mass Communication Research course in the morning. While listening to the course description, I was a bit bummed out that I’m taking it in D.C.. The other problem with the class is that it involves creating surveys and interviewing people on the street (not on campus), which is something I can’t do. I can’t speak Arabic, and very few people here speak enough English for me to actually communicate a survey with them.

After eating an interesting lunch with Emily and Adam I took up residence in the make shift guidance office for international students to add and drop classes. I dropped all of my courses. I am now enrolled in a different section of Media Management, Newspaper Writing and Editing, The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Egyptian Literature in Translation. I’m still trying to figure out what my fifth course will be. Partially, this depends on what I want my minor to be. It was really hard enough picking a major, this minor business is miserable. I thought that I wanted a minor in business, but I’ve managed to avoid economics for so long; it seems like such a wasted effort if I just hop on board my parent’s victory wagon and take Micro. My goal is to have my fifth class picked out by Wednesday. Then I’m off to celebrate the end of Ramadan with the long weekend in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. I’m hoping it’s a tad more colorful than Cairo. I could use a change of scenery.