Wednesday, February 23, 2011

PUCP - La Católica








The university I attended in Lima was awesome.

I attended Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) or simply "La Católica" which is easily one of the best universities in Peru. I didn't actually know much about my university until I got to Peru; I was too excited about speaking Spanish, traveling, making friends, and adventure. Regardless, it was incredible.

Thus, I have to give a shout out post to "la Cato" because I am so thankful for the education I received there. I took three classes: a Peruvian history class, a contemporary Hispanic literature class, and a linguistic analysis class. Linguistic analysis blew my mind. My professor was too cool for class formality or for assignments. Class time and homework consisted of "chewing on" problematic sentences and the abstract concept of language. Furthermore, all he did outside of class was stroll around campus and think up new linguistic theories. That is my theory. He wrote his thesis under Noam Chomsky at MIT (but of course he never said anything about it, my friends and I looked him up on Wikapedia – we were a little obsessed) and once took a week off to present at Harvard. Beyond all that, he was simply a really cool dude and he taught me to think more about language: fascinating, living, and powerful.

PUCP breakdown (what's it like?):
- 20,000 students
- 50 areas of study.
- Big beautiful campus
- Enclosed by a security wall with security at the entrances (common for most universities).
- Deer live on campus - a signature of La Catolica
- Class grades come from quizzes on reading (there was a lot of reading but little homework) and the midterm and final tests which were pure essay, like a "blue book" test in the USA.
- Students don't live on campus, residence halls don't exist
- Universities are very academic driven, there aren't many clubs or organizations to join
- I totally knew where all the good snack/pastry stands were on campus and lunch food was cheap, plentiful, healthy, and delicious in comparison to ours.


yup.

So that is my shout out to La Católica. I L-O-V-E-D it, and I hope to go back someday /// Maybe I'll be the one teaching then...



No comments:

Post a Comment