... And We're Off!

So I am happy to report that the fall semester has FINALLY started! The public policy program is a one-year master's program. Semesters are short- fall runs September 25 through December 15 (exams included), spring is approximately January 9 through end of March, and then we have three and a half months to write a thesis. It is a 40-credit program, with 34 credits divided between the fall and spring semesters, plus a 6-credit thesis. Of the 34 taught credits, 22 are mandatory and 12 are electives, and of the 12 electives, you can take 6 in a particular "stream" and they will give you a specialization in that area on your diploma.

How that all breaks down for me then: instead of taking 17 credits each semester, I will take 19 this semester and 11 in spring, since I am getting 6 credits transfered from the public administration graduate courses I took last year at FIU. Therefore:

Fall- 19 credits
Required: Policy analysis (6)
Macroeconomics (3)
Qualitative methods (2)
Academic writing (not for credit- what a rip-off!)
Electives: Rural development (2)
Corruption (2)
Macroeconomics and public finance (4)
Low-intermediate Hungarian (not for credit)

Spring- 11 credits
Required: Microeconomics (3)
Quantitative methods (2)
Comparative political institutions (4)
Ethics and public policy (2)
Academic writing (0)
No electives

Now about the streams: in the public policy department your choices are fiscal decentralization, international public policy and media and telecommunications. My original thought was to do the international stream, since my interests are in the international arena, etc. etc. Upon closer look at the courses offered in each stream, however, I found I was more drawn to the fiscal decentralization stream, which is very heavy in economics. "Fiscal decentralization" is much more of a niche than "international public policy" and I think will be more useful to me in the long run (especially since my undergraduate degree is in international relations).

CEU is supposed to be modeled after a U.S. graduate institute, but there are many things they do quite differently here:
1. All classes are offered during the day. There are no night classes (after 5pm), which makes it really hard to take classes offered by other departments (political science, international relations, etc.) because they always overlap with the required courses from your own department, since there are only 8 hours per day during which classes are offered.
2. The schedule rotates, so this week I don't have classes on Thursday (or Friday, but I won't have class at all this semester on Friday, continuing my college career RECORD of never sitting in a classroom on a Friday. It's wonderful!), but next week I do have class on Thursday morning. This means you must always check your schedule to see what class you have and at what time.
3. Depending on how many credits the course is worth, you have class either once a week or twice a week, and the meetings are either single sessions (one hour forty minutes) or double sessions (three hours and forty minutes!).
4. They are not so big on exams here but very big on presentations- I already have two presentations scheduled for next week.
5. Textbooks are very expensive here (because many of the materials come from the U.S. and to have them shipped to Hungary costs an arm and a leg), so as a general rule they don't use them. They prefer readers, which are a compilation of articles from various sources. Most of the readers are 1-2 inches thick and cost 15-25 USD, which is very reasonable.
6. Several of my professors are a bit wild about powerpoint, and will send you the slides prior to class so that you can print them out and make notes right onto the slides. Most of the material they cover is actually on the slides, so for some students that is great (means you don't have to take notes) but for people like me who actually like to take notes, it can be a bit annoying to have all the material already printed in front of me.

All this talk about school... now it's time to get back to studying!