Hello, everyone! Guess who’s back with new stories from the exchange semester in Barcelona? As the second semester started last week, this time, I decided to tell you all about the differences in teaching styles and approaches.
- Classes – Here at UAB I am taking 5 modules and my itinerary is quite interesting. While at Worcester, we’d have 3-hour classes, here things are different. Let me explain! Every week, I have a Marketing class twice: on Wednesday, for 2 hours and on Friday, for an hour. This does mean I am at university 5 days a week, but it is also really good, as teachers use that one hour to summarize and revise everything. And that really helps!
- Teaching – The situation here is similar. The lecturers have presentations and talk about the subject, then give us some ‘now you try it’ exercises. The only difference might be that we don’t ‘escape’ without some homework (which is why I have been spending a lot of my time at the library lately).
- Environment – The UAB campus is incredibly big, where each faculty has a building of its own. The Business and Economics one are right in the center of the campus and it has multiple studying places, with the rooms shaped more like an auditorium than our traditional round tables at Worcester.
- Evaluation – Midterm exams, final exams…too many exams. While at Worcester, we have more assignments and projects than actual exams, at UAB, it seems like this is all we have. I did not expect 70% of all of my modules to depend on the exam grade and this makes me feel a bit scared, but I am determined to do my best.
So these are some of the differences that I have come across so far. I can’t believe I’ve been here for almost 3 weeks now and I am very happy to say I am starting to develop an itinerary and a rhythm…just like at home (adaptable skills- checked).
Worcester Student Life 