The most exciting thing that's happened this week was the addition of my 2 new classes. Well that's a lie, but it's pretty exciting to finally have my full schedule and actually have homework (of which I have a lot already....*sigh*) My new classes are 'Russian Space & Russian State' and 'The Post Soviet Economy'. They're both Masters classes but nothing I can't handle.
My Prof for RSRS is ironically called Prof Medvedev....but he's a Sergei not a Dmitri. He's a nice guy and has an interesting Russian accent - it's slightly americanized so sounds strange. The class is about the dichotomy between the vast Russian Space and the expansive (& meddling) Russian State and essentially the fact that problems in Russia can all be boiled down to State vs Space. I enjoyed the class a lot but it was a shame the classroom was a long rectangle shape because it meant that it was hard to hear the Prof & the Russians don't really keep quiet in class, they don't really pay much attention at all!
My second class was today and the Economics one. Our Prof gave us the choice of the "Official" course or the "Critical & Real" course. You can easily guess which course we opted for, but were asked not to mention our Prof's views or quote him directly. I'm hoping that this will be a really frank look at the Russian economy and I'm looking forward to it! Apparently a lot of the "official" data on the Russian economy is utter crap (excuse my language) & manipulated by the state and so this teacher promised to give us the real picture! The media was censored here in Russia during 2008 to make the public believe that the financial crisis wasn't nor wouldn't affect Russia, it was something that had affected the Western world & was bringing about their downfall. Sound suspiciously Soviet to you?
I have to write a book review for my politics class and do a presentation for my economics class but thankfully we're actually going to get graded for class participation!! The Russians have 2 systems, either a lucky dip exam at the end of a semester where you pick your exam question out of a hat OR a system of being graded during the semester for participation, attendance, presentations and an essay. I much prefer the 2nd system, it seems to work better and offer higher grades, it also means that people actually have to work harder during the semester!
