School in Spain

This is the second week of classes for the fall semester at ESADE. I know some of my friends at Georgetown want to kill me about now as they started classes back in August and I've pretty much been having fun in Europe all this time. Classes here aren't too terribly different from Georgetown -- a little smaller which leads to a more intimate discussion-like lecture, but they are MUCH longer and more intense.

Instead of having two 1.5 hour classes a week, here we have one 3 hour class or in the case of this course, two weeks of 5 hour classes every day. I find it hard enough to concentrate for an hour and a half, but 5 hours of the economics of the European Union leaves me in a vegetative state which is unaided by the numerous cups of cafe con leche I drink through the day. The problem is, zoning out leads to an almost impossible game of catch-up when you reawaken. So I keep drinking strong coffee and hope for the best.

This class is meant as an introduction to the EU for non-Europeans (read N and S Americans and Asians). Interestingly however, we have good representation from within the EU. This usually leads to lively discussion as every nationality usually has something to say (much like the EU itself it seems).

Today for some reason, the class had split up into their continental groups with all the Asian students at the back of the room, the Americans in the front middle, the Europeans on the left and the South Americans on the right. How interesting... I of course, straddled both the North American and European groups as I seem to have something to say on both sides of any argument. The discussion was great and seemed to flit from one group to another as passionate, strong willed MBA's debated pretty much every point that arose. The highlight of the class though was a short video our professor showed of a talk by a Professor Hans Rolling on the statistics and realities of the developing world. Normally a talk on stats would have me retreat straight into that vegetative state, however this guy is such a gifted story teller and his message so interesting, I was hanging on to every word. I have copied it for you here.