The hard work has begun… After traveling for so long we have finally been forced to sit in a classroom and learn. However, I must say that taking classes even till 8pm is not hard to do when you enjoy every single one of your classes. Most of my classes are on topics that I am familiar with on an American Continent level, but now I will get to explore the European angle. Every day I go to class I am excited to learn and question everything I know. Therefore I thought it would be appropriate to tell you a little about each of my classes, which is a total of three electives, one seminar and a German class.
One of the electives is Migration, Ethnic Minorities, and Multiculturalism in Europe; this class is an introduction to the major theories of migration, the history of European migration and post-colonial migration. As a future International Immigration Lawyer this is really allowing me to get my toes wet on the European aspect of my holy grail (yaiii). The European Union and the Muslim World is my second elective; this class analyses the issue of security, international relations, comparative politics and intercultural dialogue. To be able to study this while it’s such a hot topic in today’s world is fantastic, it helps me understand why certain actions are taken and not taken by current political leaders. Finally, the EU-US Relations: A Multi-Dimensional Partnership elective, this class consists of diving into the post-cold war relationship between the EU and US through analyzing transatlantic foreign and security policies, economic and trade relations, and the shared and conflicting values.
(aka home for the semester)
The Integrative Seminar that I am taking consist of learning about the structure of each body within the EU, diving into current events as well as preparing for a Model EU (for those of you who have done a Model UN it is basically the same idea). This seminar really requires a lot of nit-picky learning, but I’ve been having a blast. Finally, my German Language course… as a bilingual (I speak Spanish and English) and partial French speaker I can assure you that German is the hardest language I have attempted to learn. I am doing my best to really achieve a “drop me in Germany and I’ll survive” level of German, but boy it is hard.
Well, I believe I have proven my level of geekiness… but those are my classes for the rest of the semester, unless I am off traveling the rest of Europe. Which is what I will be doing next week (whoop whoop!).
Where to? I’ll give you a hint… it is the city or cork.
Meanwhile, feast on some picture of Freiburg!
