So I just completed my first few weeks at GWU and there's going to be a lot of getting used to. First of all, my classes were all 3 hours long in France but I didn't have too much homework. Here it's the complete opposite, the classes are much shorter, but the homework is non-stop. I wasn't really expecting that and as a result, I'm already feeling overloaded with homework.
I knew reading was required for every one of my classes, but as I received the syllabus of each class I understood that I wouldn't be watching Netflix before going to bed, but instead reading one of the six textbooks I will eventually finish for my 4 classes.
In high school I had great teachers, but on top of that, they were so friendly and helpful that there was a great teacher student relationship. At my university in France, these relationships, for most teachers didn't exist. It's considered weird in France to be close to your teacher, knowing them personally is very rare. GWU is more similar to my high school than university in this aspect. Teachers here give out their phone number in case a students needs to contact them. Teachers are more than willing to help you outside of class with the topics addressed in each class. I also loved that in every single one of my classes the teachers introduced themselves by talking about their life and telling us more than what we could find out about them on Linkedin. This personal touch made the classroom atmosphere more relaxed which made me feel like it was easier to participate in class and ask a question if I got confused.
Regarding my classes, I took 3 challenging ones and 1 class that I was just really passionate about but didn’t have too much to do with business. All of my classes have a heavy workload but I love the atmosphere because the students and teachers are really motivated. I came to the US to witness the “you can do it” attitude, and in my classes this motivation resonates and I’m glad because with the workload that I have aligned this semester, I’m going to need all the motivation I can get. For those who think that 4 classes isn’t a lot, a lot of accounting and finance laws differ from Europe and America, and in all my classes we are focusing on American practices so additionally to the workload given by my professors, I have to conduct my own research to understand the differences in American and European practices to understand the content of my classes, but I’m not complaining because I came here to learn!
This will probably be my only post about schoolwork but I felt like it is important because my mom reads this blog and I don’t want her to think that I’m just chilling here in America! So here is a picture of me studying!
PICTURE 1