By now, most of you
know that I suffer from social anxiety, which makes me behave awkward during
social gatherings. In the past, it has crippled me to the point where
I didn’t even want to leave the house. Fortunately, I've been able to manage this condition with the medication and free therapy I've received at the public hospital.
I knew I would feel
some anxiety on my first day of college, even with the medication. So I decided
to go to this get-together to meet my fellow peers. I was hoping I’d make a
friend or two, but it didn’t work out quite as I expected.
For starters,
everyone was between the ages of 16 and 23. This made it difficult to relate
since I’m 36 and an old soul. Teenagers and young adults are usually pretty
innocent in Argentina. By innocent, I don’t mean that they’re not prone to
excessive alcohol consumption, drug use, or in some cases, crime. I just mean
that they’re at that stage in life where they’re naïve and think that the world
is like "Neverland," with little or no-worries. Oh, how I envy the blindness of
youth.
The other factor
which made it difficult for me to relate to my peers was the fact that they
were all Argentinian and they had experiences growing up here that I simply
don’t understand because I wasn’t raised here. It was impossible to share what
I went through without getting stares, or in one instance, a smart aleck remark.
The third issue I encountered was the slang that's commonly used by young adults here. I had a hard
time understanding and following the conversations. Like in every other
culture, Argentinians have their own jokes, stories, and funny curse words
that I’m not aware of or accustomed to.
The final obstacle I
encountered was the mentality of the students, and later the professors. I’ll
give you an example. We’re all members of a Facebook group for 2014 psychology students. Apparently, one student had posted a photo of himself relaxing in
front of the pool in his bare feet. At the get-together, another student brought
this post to everyone’s attention and proceeded to call this other student a son-of-a-b*tch
who likes to show off that he has a pool while the rest of them melt in this
infernal heat. It’s my observation that a lot of people here seem to be quite
envious of others who have more than they do. I guess as human beings, we’re all
a prone to being a bit envious of our neighbors to some degree, but some
Argentinians seem to take it to the extreme.
By the time that the
get-together was done, some went their separate ways. Others went to a bar
together. I didn’t feel I could relate to these particular peers, so I went
home.
Monday, February 3rd
was the first day of class and it was complete chaos! There were so many
students waiting to get into class that they had to relocate everyone to a
larger classroom.
Once we were all
settled, a professor walked on stage and discussed what we could expect from
the psychology career program. Then a group of students from the CEP, which is like a
student activities/advisory department ran by students only, came by to talk to
us about their personal experiences at the university, and some pushed their
political agendas (which I’ll go into more detail in a moment).
Classes at the
university are divided into two categories, Practico and Teorico.
Practico classes are held on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays, and consist of a classroom-type setting where you
have a group of 30 to 35 students. The professor will go over the textbook
material and hand out assignments and homework. In here, we are placed in
groups of 4 or 5 in order to interact better. Attendance for the Practico
classes is mandatory. Unfortunately, my Practico class didn’t start until
Wednesday February 5th.
On Tuesday, February 4th,
we went to an auditorium known as “El Rectorado”. This is essentially where we
attend classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These classes are known as “Teorico”, which
basically means it’s a lecture. In here, you just listen to the professor
discuss the subject at hand for about two hours and then you go home.
Attendance is not mandatory for the “Teorico” classes, but it’s strongly
encouraged since we only get two and a half weeks before the first mid-term
exam, called “Parcial”. The Teoricos get packed with students, but space is limited, so they encourage us to be at the auditorium about an hour before the doors open.
The textbook itself
is over 400 pages long and encompasses the politics that lead to the history of
the free, public, higher education system in Argentina, and the history of
psychology. I have to admit that even with the study groups I'm finding it really
difficult to understand the content.
The fact is I’ve never read books in
Spanish. I never had to. If you come to my house, every single book and magazine
I have is in English. Though I can speak it well enough, I have some basic reading and writing knowledge of Spanish, but that's it. Reading and understanding the textbook, which is in Castilian
Spanish is a major brain teaser. As I read through the chapters, word for word,
sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, I felt like my mind was sinking in quicksand.
By Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday, I pretty much had an idea of what I could expect for the
next five years. During the “Teorico” classes, both the professor and the guest
lecturers talked about the history and political struggles that formed the National
University of Cordoba. However, they also repeatedly criticized how the current
economic and political crisis in Argentina are the result of the president’s
regime.
Personally, I hate
politics! However, a lot of the points they make go against everything I
believe in. For example, they seem quite determined to limit government
regulations and sanctions from affecting the university. They encourage the
student body to create these university-type governments in which students can
vote. We’ve had representatives come and talk to us at the beginning of
classes to sway us to their cause.
This isn’t like the student council in middle school, high school, or
college back in the States, where it was all about organizing a pep rally in
support of human rights or a bake sale for a good cause. One student government representative attacked the Argentinian president’s methods of handling the
economy, claiming that she cares more about the success of large corporations
than small businesses and the Argentinian people. She also attacked the international companies
that have come to Argentina like Chevron and Monsanto (although Monsanto is allegedly responsible for environmental contamination that has left many sick in the
region where their factories operate from, and that I DO understand).
Some of these views are undoubtedly the
result of the xenophobia that plagues Argentina and the “unfounded” fear of
colonization by the U.K. or the U.S.
I fully support a
government that ensures that success of large corporations because their
success creates more jobs and it helps to industrialize this nation further. I’m
also a strong proponent of international companies doing business in Argentina
because they bring jobs, money, and more exposure to the nation, but people here don't seem to have the same perspective.
Well, guess what? The entire world is suffering from an economic crisis, including
the U.S. I think it’s selfish that these lecturers assume that this is
happening exclusively in Argentina because of the current government regime. For a
country that is in a supposed economic crisis, people do an awful lot of shopping
in Cordoba and Buenos Aires (I’ve spent time in both of these provinces so I know).
Again, this is where
I become an oddball because I don’t see things the way my peers do. There’s
free health care, free higher education, plenty of food, peace and quiet (most
of the time), no mandatory national taxes (they do have provincial and
municipal, but they’re easy to handle with a job). There aren’t too many
nations in the world that can claim to offer these things.
Insurgency just causes headaches, but the university seems bent
on encouraging anger and insurgency when they should be focusing solely
on teaching.
I’ve been in Argentina for almost two years now and I thought I’d
gotten over the culture shock, but now in my first week as a psych
student, I feel like I’m reliving it all over again.
I realize that my point of view may offend some Argentinians, and I'd like to say that this wasn't my intention when I wrote this article. I am simply expressing my personal experience as an expat which is what this blog is about.
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