Cross Cultural Seminar

I'm afraid I don't have any photos to make this post as snappy as the rest but too bad for once you'll just have to actually read what I write.

Ok I am taking this Cross Cultural seminar this weekend (Oct1-3) for my cross cultural class. As they say in France it was Compulsory for students taking that class. The seminar is unlike anything I've seen in the US. We had some reading to do on a specific subject according to our given section. My subject is UNESCO and specifically their cultural policies.

On Thursday afternoon we attended an opening speech/lecture and were sent to our groups where we took a quiz on the reading and the opening lecture. After that we realized that the majority of students there were french and there were only 5 international students. So the professor decided to interrogate us one at a time. I was first. I had to say my name, where I was from, what classes I was taking, how long I was going to be in france, if I had any culture shock, etc etc etc

Then we met in small groups within our sections to create a presentation for saturday morning based upon the reading. There was no rules other than it had to be based on the reading. No time limit, suggested style, etc. We had one hour to come up with something.

I was paired with 7 french students who wanted to speak french to each other (duh) but I don't speak french so it was REALLY awkward. They told me that growing up in school they never do group projects or think creatively so it was my job to come up with ideas. They decided on a quiz show idea (I tried to steer them elsewhere since it is so overdone) However once the french have decided there is no changing it.

Friday was devoted to creating and reifining the presentation, at calpoly a presentation of this nature (basic info in 10 mins) would take an hour tops to create plan and practice. With the french and translating ideas, disagreements, and scripts extends that time greatly. So we met at 9 am (all but 3 of us who were so drunk the night before they slept through their alarms and were and hour and a half late) We finished everything by 1pm which was awesome because I was able to go downtown with some friends and hang out that afternoon/evening.

Saturday is all about presentations galore. First the small groups within the section choose the best on their topic to present in front of all groups this afternoon. Right now we are on break wating for a Canadian boy to show up so his group to present then we will decided and have a lunch break (lunch breaks here are 1 and 1/2 hours longs I love it) before going to the big assembly this afternoon.

I'll update later on how the big bang goes down this afternoon