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University Life
So I’ve now had a good month at the University of Damascus and it’s been an interesting experience.
From what I can tell it’s not just me that thinks the placement test that we took at the start of the term was a complete waste of time, as they had to do a new one because everyone was complaining so much about where they’d been put, most likely because the test was multiple choice so you could just guess most of it and have a 1/4 chance of getting it right which completely messes up the point of the test. The second test I think they realised this and took away the multiple choice.
The classes are quite well taught, with all the explanations and everything completely in Arabic, which can be a bit hard to understand at first but eventually you get the hang of things and understand what’s going on. One thing that really throws me is the questions, which are written in Arabic and unfortunately we haven’t been taught how to say “negate this sentence” or “underline the musdars in the paragraph”, but I’m starting to get the hang of it though.
Class sizes are a bit large but it’s smaller than the class I’d be in in Durham so it’s alright, and it’s been great fun meeting people from lots of different universities who do the same course and me and I’ve been able to make quite a few friends from all over the place.
Getting to the university in the morning is quite easy: a taxi between 4 people usually costs 10SYP each, which is about 13p. Getting back is slightly more of a hassle as all the taxis usually want around 100SYP, so we catch the bus back instead which is 10SYP and takes us to Marjeh square where we can walk back to the house via the Umayyad Mosque.
I had an interesting experience today in which some person called Muhammad approached me and has asked me to be his exchange partner, so I’m meeting up with him tomorrow evening to practise my Arabic and for him to practise his English. Should be interesting… No doubt something comically terrible will happen and I’ll end up with an amusing story to tell.
Watch this space.
D
