First Day of Classes

Today was the first day of classes on the ship!  It started off at 9:20am with Global Studies.  That is the class that everyone is required to take and the professor seems like he will at least be entertaining.  Today’s lecture was all relating back to the movie 300 so it was good to see that he was trying to connect Mediterranean history with everyone.  It should end up being a pretty easy class though.  The book for it is a coffee table book filled mostly with artsy pictures so I will have a nice book to show off my time in the Mediterranean.

My next class was Physiology of Stress and Stress Management at 10:45am.  The professor of this class is a psychiatrist who lives on an Indian Reservation and doesn’t normally teach classes so he was definitely a little out there.  He had us doing meditation exercises already and is burning CDs with meditation music for everyone to have.  The workload for the class is definitely smaller than the other ones because our homework involves some reading and then doing meditation like 5 times a week.

I took my lunch break after stress class then I had Abnormal Psychology at 1:35pm.  I really liked the professor for this class and the material seems the most interesting out of any of my other classes.  He seemed like a really good teacher and also funny so it kept us all entertained.  The reading for this class is from a huge textbook combined with case studies so there is also a lot of reading but should be manageable.

I went to a 4th class, Cross-Cultural Psychology, at 4:15pm because I was interested in switching to that instead of one of the other ones.  It is the same professor as Abnormal Psychology, so he was entertaining yet again.  The class went over the syllabus and was mainly repetition from his other class.  This class definitely has a lot less work involved than Abnormal Psych.  I ended up being able to switch into this class instead of Abnormal Psych because I can take Abnormal Psych at UVa and the cross-cultural class will be a lot more relevant for the voyage.

My final course schedule will be as follows:
Global Studies 9:20am-10:35am
Physiology of Stress and Stress Management 10:45am-12:00pm
Cross Cultural Psychology 4:15pm-5:30pm

Most people on the ship are freaking out because they actually have to do reading.  I think all the professors definitely seem more relaxed than normal UVa professors.  They are all about flexibility and having things change to go with the flow.  Since a lot of people are getting seasick they are already telling you how to miss class and that it would be ok to make up work, etc.  I definitely think that it will not be a walk in the park, but the classes are very reasonable and manageable if you are careful your time.

Well I’m going to go ahead and get started on my reading for tonight – it is actually a sunny day outside finally so I will probably go sit out on the back deck!