The Gringa Student, Part 2

This is the second part of a four-part series about being a foreign exchange student in Chile. If you missed part one, you can find it here. 

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That is how I felt most of the semester, especially in my two, direct-exchange classes. The education system in Chile is a little different from the one in the United States. To me in the United States, many of the classes are more focused on the students. Professors often encourage student discussions and interaction between the students and the professors. While I found some of this in my direct exchange classes, the Chilean classes focused more on straight lecture. The classes in Chile lasted longer, usually an hour and a half instead of fifty minutes or an hour and fifteen. It was a difficult transition to make because I had to listen to long lectures in Spanish with little to break the monotony—it’s much easier to zone out when listening to your second language.

           

The history "castle" where I had two of my classes. 

My other classes were either a mix of foreign students and Chileans or were reserved for foreign exchange students. Those classes were much easier than my direct-exchange classes, though still difficult. Though I managed to make A’s and B’s while abroad, I worked hard for them. Of course, you assume things will be different when you’re studying abroad, you’ve even been warned about it, but until you’re staring blankly at a blank piece of paper this fact doesn’t really hit home. I did manage to pass that history test, but I’m pretty sure that the professor just took pity on me.

           

I had never been so unprepared for a test in my life—though some of the geography tests were probably just as bad. The professor didn’t give out study guides, really. The only thing we had was something our teaching assistant, an older student, had written up to explain some of the texts we had read. It isn’t as if the professors wanted you to do poorly; it’s just that they weren’t as focused on you getting an A or the Chilean equivalent, a six or seven. The Chilean grading scale goes from zero to seven, with seven being equivalent to a hundred in the United States. The students didn’t seem very focused on getting sevens either. Passing, getting a four or better, appeared to be more important. I’m still not sure whether it was the students’ attitude or the professors’ that made this the case.

Did the students not care as much because they knew that a four was all they needed—that a five was slightly better, but still a B by U.S. standards? I was happy with my fives in my two hardest classes, but when I came back home, I had to explain why I, a traditionally straight-A student, had gotten B’s. Perhaps the professors made their classes so difficult that it was almost impossible to get a seven? At least one kid, however—out of seventy—managed to do it in my history class. And as I said, the professors weren’t out to get me, except for my history professor, who teased me mercilessly, but they didn’t make themselves very accessible. Many classes didn’t really have a syllabus and the professors didn’t have office hours. I didn’t even know where my history professor’s office was until the last day of the semester when I had to meet with him to discuss my grade. My geography class was slightly better because there were six foreign students, including myself, and we did manage to meet with our professor a few times, but sometimes he wouldn’t even show up at his office.

Continue to Part Three