Starting Classes

January 17

Adjusting to the Campus

On Monday, I learned just how large UCD feels, especially when all the domestic students came back. That morning, I made my way to the main heart of campus to get some work done for my classes that started this week. As soon as I walked into the main ring of buildings, I felt overwhelmed. UCD has a student population of over 30,000 people, which is considerably more students than my home university's student population of around 4,000.

All the Irish students were meeting back up with their friends after the holiday break, and I was alone simply trying to find my go-to coffee spot on campus. Everyone knew where they were going, and I was still exploring. I did successfully get my coffee and make my way to Quinn (the business school building) to get some work done. The building is extremely nice but cold; due to COVID protocols, they have to keep the windows in the building open. There I was at my table, hands shaking due to the cold, just trying to take some notes. Eventually, after a few hours, I had enough of the cold and headed back to my dorm to decompress from the day.

Learning the Hard Way

That afternoon, we ventured to a "walkable" grocery store. Through the woods, up the road, and after 30 minutes, we finally made it to SuperValu, which actually so far had the best selection of groceries in my opinion. I recognized a lot of the brands, which I appreciated. I knew I couldn't get too many groceries, as we had to walk 30 minutes back to the dorm, but the walk would be nice if I only had to pick up a few items. Using Apple or Google Maps is great to get around, so a 30 minute walk doesn't seem too bad, but they get tough when you have to carry pounds of groceries on each arm. To the gym I go to try to get some arm strength so that I can get more groceries more easily!

January 18

First Day of Classes

Tuesday was the first day that my class sessions were held...kind of. On Monday, I had learned that my 1pm class on Tuesday had been cancelled, so I only had my 5pm online class. I didn't have work to do, so I did some laundry and cleaned up my room in the afternoon, so at least I was still productive. At 5pm, I logged into Zoom and within minutes had learned that this class was going to be asynchronous where lectures will be pre-recorded and uploaded for us to watch whenever is convenient. I'm not sure how I lucked out with this schedule, but I'm not complaining!

In essence, my Tuesdays will look like this:

1:00-2:50pm - Digital Marketing

Nothing! Well, the 5pm class materials will be posted on Tuesdays, but it's nice to have the flexibility to watch them whenever. By the way, this class is called "Exploring Ireland."

January 19

First Day of Real Classes

Wednesday was finally the day that I went to class. My 11am Wellness & Work class was great! We're going to learn about stress management techniques and how we can apply them in the workplace. The only con about this in-person class is that, again, they keep the windows open, so the classroom was freezing. I constantly have my winter coat on inside. The seats in the classroom were also funky; they all sit shoulder to shoulder, so it's a tight fit. I'm sitting within a foot of the person next to me; it's very different from home. That class only had about 40-50 people in it, so it didn't feel too overwhelming.

I had an hour break between 1-2pm, so I got lunch at the Law School cafe. Then, I went to class again. At 2pm, I had Global Marketing, which was a much different experience than my class at 11am. In a stadium-style set up classroom with all the seats in a row attached to each other configured to fit 200 people, this class was already off to an interesting start. I really like my lecturer though; she did a great introduction about what marketing is (I volunteered to answer a question, so I was really proud of that) to get everyone on the same page.

About 30 minutes into the class, we needed to get into our pre-assigned groups. In a classroom where I'm touching shoulders with the students next to me, movement was not going to work. So, we all filed out of the classroom and into the art gallery in Quinn. We then made signs with our group numbers on them (there are 25 groups by the way) and attempted to find our group members. It was chaos for about 20 minutes of the class. When we finally did find our group, I was happy to see that my group was all girls; it was a nice change of pace from my usual group dynamics back home. This class seems like a lot more work, but I am definitely excited about it! I'm happy to be taking actual marketing classes now.

The beginning of this week was a lot, but only having class Tuesday and Wednesday is really nice, as it allows me time on each end to get a lot of homework done if I want to travel. Academics aren't really that exciting, so I'll only mention the fun stuff about my classes in future posts, but the first week is always the most hectic, so I wanted to document it somehow. Things are still going extremely well here, and I'm excited to see what's more to come!

Cheers!