Remember December

Remember December

 I dedicate this post to remember about what happened in December since I made no single post during that month. If you wonder why I was so busy during that time, it might be because of the exam week. The December is the peak time of the final exam and the project deadline. So you can imagine how hectic the schedule is. I recall those days as days of sacrifice because I literally sacrifice all my energy and time to get all the tasks done (every day including my weekends, from 8 in the morning until 7 in evening at campus and then go back home, have some dinner, and again continue the work). But I'm glad that I manage to get  everything under control. 

In France, the exam week is divided into 2 sessions: the earlier one is in the middle of the semester (on beginning of November), the later one in the end of the semester (on December). This way the students will have more time to study the subjects and not having everything pile up in the end. SO for example, here I have 7 courses in one semester, three of them were tested in November and the rests were in December. In addition, there was also seminars and Specification definition of Master Thesis project where we would give a presentation in front of our lecturers who will assess the result of our study.

As I told you earlier one semester includes 7 courses that is translated into 30 ECTS or credits. The assessment score is from 1 to 20, with 10 as a passing mark. O in order to validate the semester, you have to obtain at least 10 score on average. These criteria are so different in my country, where the GPA is range from 1 to 4. And each subject is scored as follows: A (very good), B (good), C(satisfactory), D (pass), and E (fail). So if you get E in any subject then you need to take it again the next semester in order to pass.

Another thing that I observed here is that the class schedules are rather tight. I mean it is common to have lectures every day (Monday to Friday) from 8 AM in the morning till afternoon at about 5 or 6 PM. But the funny thing is that the building will close at 7 PM which means you could not really do your group works in the campus after 7, so you have to move to your apartment to do so. This is rather bothersome especially when you have a much workload in project assignment in which you have no other option unless gather everyone in the same room and work together. In my country, the campus will close at about 9 PM every day and we can still enter the main lobby or gazebo outside the Department building 24/7. Plus some classroom are actually opened in weekends. So I can say that it is pretty much easy to find a place for group study.