School – The Reason I’m Here (right…?)

I’ve been going to classes for the past three weeks now and I’m starting to a better understanding of the school system here.  Its still an upward battle though, but things are getting easier and I’m adapting.

The school system and format is really different from school at home.  I’ve been use to a semester system with a largish class size (approx 60 students).  Here, instead of semesters, they have “Blocks” which last about 7 weeks + a week of exams.  I’ll be here for two blocks. 

The philosophy behind their teaching method is also very different.  They use something called Problem Based Learning, where its more the students teaching each other instead of having a professor lecture to a bunch of students half asleep.  Because of this, students are put into small classes (called tutorials) and are required to participate.  Participation is a large part of the course and can determine if you pass or fail the class (aka if you don’t participate, you will fail despite marks in other areas of the course).  In my tutorials I have 13 – 14 people.  Really small compared to the classes of 60 students at home (which is already small compared to other faculties at UVic)!  Because of the need to participate you have to be prepared for class.  All the assigned readings and tasks need to be completed or else you’ll have nothing to contribute and lose marks.  I’ve been struggling to stay on top of things, but there is just so much to read and so many things to prepare! 

This first block, I’m taking 2 classes (you’re only allowed to take 2): Brand Management and Business and Politics in Europe (which is a mandatory class for UVic students).

 

Brand Management

So far this class has been really interesting!  Some of the material is a bit dry, but most of it talks about consumer behaviour, advertising (excuse to go on YouTube?!), and how branding works.  Most of the people in my tutorial are regular students.  Of a class of 14, only 3 are exchange students.  Its really amazing to see the regular students interact with one another, building off of each other’s questions and really knowing the material.  They are able to make connections with the material that I never could.  This is learning on a whole different level!  It is pretty intense.  It has been a bit difficult for me to contribute in this class – there is so little airtime!  Most often I contribute by explaining things about Canada and how they relate to the particular topic we were discussing that day.

An interesting aspect of this course is our second life project.  Second life is a virtual reality world where people can interact and (almost) do anything they like.  Within this platform, we’ve been split into groups and asked to market a product.  We create the marketing plan for our product, creating brand awareness, and implement things we’ve discussed in class.  Ultimately we’ll be able to “purchase” products from our classmates.  Its been a bit difficult to learn how to use second life, but the project itself is a really interesting way to learn.

 

Brand Management’s Island on 2nd Life

 

Business and Politics in Europe

This class has been intense from the start.  There are lots of reading to be done on academic journals which are not necessarily the easiest to understand.  This course really makes me feel stupid.  Conversation doesn’t flow as easily in the class compared to the other.  The majority of the people in the class are exchange students not use to the PBL system.

The materials covered really reminds me of IB History in high school mixed with a bit of the introductory International Business class I took last year.  There is a lot of prior knowledge needed in order to make sense of the class.  The best part of this class is that there is no final exam, only a paper.  If I had a choice and it wasn’t mandatory for me to take this class, I wouldn’t.  Its been a headache from the start.  Some parts of it is pretty interesting, others is so difficult to wrap my head around.  Even after class I’m still horribly confused.  I even have difficulties understanding the teacher.

Tomorrow I’m discussion leader with another student.  The two of us are responsible for leading the class in understanding the literature assigned.  We had to create questions about the readings and tomorrow we guide the others in answering them.  Hopefully our questions will be okay!  It was difficult to create questions that were not too easy (straight out of the readings) or too hard (where no one can answer it).