MacKat in Ireland

To get to Venice without spending an inordinate amount of money we had to fly to Bergamo (outside Milan), stay the night there, and take the train to Venice the next morning.  Getting to Bergamo wasn’t a problem and catching a bus to the city centre wasn’t any harder.  The problem came when we had to find the room we had rented.

Instead of staying in a hotel or hostel as we have on all previous trips, we booked an apartment for Friday night.  The pictures looked really nice and the price was good, but we didn’t know the directions were entirely inaccurate until we found ourselves walking around an unfamiliar Italian town at 10:30pm.  I tried calling the number we had but apparently our phones can’t reach Italian numbers in Italy.  We were about ready to head back to town and pay out the nose for a hotel next to the street when…

We saw a bar!  We walked through the cloud of smoke and asked the bouncer where this address was.  The bartender pulled out a phone book, much discussion ensued, and then the only employee who spoke English told us what they thought.  We did find it after that but the gate was locked.  After walking back to the bar and asking them to call the number for us we finally made it to the apartment.

There was a liter of milk in the apartment’s fridge and I was quite thirsty Friday night.  Unfortunately, there was no good way to open this cardboard box of milk.  So I poked it with a fork until there was a sizable hole.  It was about this time that I noticed the expiration date on the box.  This milk was good until January 2009.  Wow!  These Italians have discovered the secret of milk preservation!  Things were looking good until I smelled the milk.  You all know what spoiled milk smells like, but you have no idea what weird, Italian, milk-in-a-box smells like.  Picture yourself walking down an alley in Brooklyn, passing a few homeless guys, and sticking your nose in a dumpster.  That’s what weird, Italian, milk-in-a-box milk smells like.

The next morning we made our way to the train station and headed toward Venice.

With final exams fast approaching in December, I asked one of my professors how students are graded here in Ireland. I was mainly interested in what is considered “passing” since the grades for classes to be transferred back to the states will not count towards our GPA as long as we “pass” the class. Much to my surprise, he said “40% is typically standard [for a passing grade].” What?!?

In this particular class, we have a group project worth 25% of our overall grade and a final worth 75%. This seems a bit daunting at first glance, but say I get 20% on the group project (a low estimate). Then I would only need to answer one of the questions on the exam mostly right to receive a passing grade. One group report and one question somewhat correct on a test and here you go, another class done.

They also have a thing here called “compensational grading.” If you get a low grade (below 40%…goodness sakes) then you can “compensate” the low grade with a “high” grade in another class, averaging the two.

More surprising, a grade of “A1” (similar to our A+) only requires that students get 75% or more in the course.

Why is this? Well, since the government in Ireland pays the university based on the number of students they have enrolled, making student after student repeat courses would be too taxing on the government. That’s why the university also allows students to retake their final exams in the summer, should they not pass.

Yesterday, I was working on a group project with some of my fellow Irish classmates and we were discussing the next time we could meet. Do evenings work? Of course not, one girl had to attend a bar crawl and the rest were “busy” for the rest of the week. Forget waiting until the weekend, everyone will be home. Ok, well how about the next day, say 11 am? None of them thought they would be awake. Noon? Still a bit early, but they agreed to it. The project is worth almost half of our grade (and due next week), but still no one cares.

In a world where the global playing field is being leveled, where the most skilled individuals are sought regardless of their region…40% may be good enough here, but good luck finding jobs elsewhere…