A big portion of my time in Argentina will be spent at school. Even though I would have come here anyway, studying abroad is a requirement of my International Studies major and is strongly recommended for my Spanish major as well. Lots of students who come on this program can take really anything that interests them—their school just gives elective credit for the study abroad experience or their grades don’t come home with them.
My academic situation is a little more complicated, since I don’t have room in my schedule for electives or other non-essential courses. I will be taking the majority of my classes at Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), which serves as the headquarters for my program. My classes there will be with only other American students, but taught by Argentines exclusively in Spanish. I anticipate taking courses to improve my Spanish, a film class, and a class about cultural questions in Argentina. In addition to these courses, I have to take at least one class at a local university as a direct enrollment student.
On my program, we have the choice of attending three different universities for our direct enrollment courses. The first is the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)—the largest and most prestigious university in the country. It has 360,000 students (yes, you read that correctly) spread out at different facultads, which are like different schools within a university. It’s a similar set up to Indiana University, where many different schools like the Kelley School of Business or the College of Arts and Sciences are separate entities within the same university system. Except in Argentina, it’s much more complicated. Each facultad is located in a different part of the city and has its own registration process and academic calendar. Since UBA is a public school in Argentina, it’s free to all students.
Our next option is Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA) the most prestigious private school (read: you pay to attend) in Buenos Aires. It has facultads, too, but all of its buildings are near to each other, much like a campus in the United States. All the buildings are named after saints, and we get a lot of extra holidays due to saints’ days and births of important Catholic figures. Its facilities are very nice. The last choice is an arts university—I don’t know much about this one, as I didn’t attend the information sessions about it. In addition to not having time for art classes, my art talent is limited to courses like Stick Figures 101 (Muñeco de palitos I would be the Spanish equivalent).
To register here, you sign up for everything you think you might want to take, and then participate in what is called a “shopping period.” You can try out the class for a week or two, and then drop whatever you don’t like. Also, if more people sign up for the class than there is space, they have a ballotage or lottery to determine who gets to take it. Likewise, when you make your schedule you need a map, as you have to account for how much time it takes you to get to each of the class locations. Oh, and if not enough students sign up, they will cancel the class and put you in another one. Needless to say, this has been a stressful process.
This week, the two classes I’m trying out at UCA began, and I’ll write about that experience in another post. Next week the rest of the courses begin, and then I’ll decide what I am actually going to take. Registration here has been a logistical and strategic nightmare. Yesterday, I even called my Spanish advisor in the United States with questions about what credits would count. (Me: “Hi, I’m calling from Argentina right now.” Advisor: “Oh! How’s the weather?”) So vamos a ver, as they say here, we will see. Though I’m sure I will learn something meaningful and interesting from any course I take, I would greatly prefer to take classes that will come back as useful credits at IU.