My Learning Agreement

It was nice spending a wonderful day in Grøtfjord on Monday, but on Tuesday classes at the university started. In the campus center, the Rector Jarle Aarbakke gave an opening address that kicked off the school year.

Even though I did not officially start classes on Tuesday, I was on campus with Callie and Johanna to figure out classes. In order to study abroad, we had to complete a learning agreement. This learning agreement indicated what courses I would be taking while here. It had to be approved by both my home institution Concordia College and the University of Tromsø.

On my initial learning agreement, I said I would be taking a freshwater ecology course, however, when I looked at the course schedule, the course had one whole month blocked off just for lab and the rest of my lectures conflicted with another course. Therefore, I had to find another biology course. For the last six days I have been on a wild goose chase from teacher to administrator to department head to another teacher trying to get approval for a course I wanted to take. Finally, I found a biology course that fit into my schedule, was approved by both Concordia and the University of Tromsø, and would count towards my biology major. This process was overwhelming because I needed to take a biology course here in order to graduate on time this upcoming May. I will now be taking bioinformatics and it feels great to have my schedule completed.

While figuring out my courses, I noticed a large difference between what I am used to at Concordia and here in the availability of professors and people. At Concordia professors are typically available at various times throughout the day, all five days of the week. Office hours may begin at 8am or later in the day, and go until 4 or 5pm. My main point is that if you need to get a hold of them, you can. The availability of people at the University of Tromsø is on the other side of the spectrum. When trying to meet with people while on my wild goose chase, I frequently had to return to their office. Most office hours of professors and administrative staff are from 11am to 3pm and almost all professors do not have office hours on Wednesdays. What I took from the situation is that the task will get done when it gets done; there was no rush at all even though I had a deadline for my learning agreement.

Coming here, I wanted to learn to slow down and appreciate the moment. At Concordia my typical schedule involves rushing from one thing to the next. I am aware that I need to live in the moment more and I have been making efforts the last couple years to do so. During the process of amending my learning agreement, I learned to stress less when things are not in my control. Yes, I was responsible for speaking with each person, but if they weren’t there, there was nothing I could do about it. The best thing I could do was just return during their next office hours while relaxing in the meantime.

In the afternoon on Tuesday, Callie and I finally got our cards for our bank accounts. We immediately went and bought a few groceries because we had been living on hot dogs and peanut butter the last few days.

Tuesday night I finally met my other two flatmates. Yaone (prounounced Ya-oh-nay) is a sixth year medical student at the university and she is my neighbor. We are in the same mini hallway and we share a bathroom together. Yaone is from Botswana and came to Tromsø for medical school because of a program set up between her country and Norway. So far, Yaone has been very helpful in giving me directions to places or answering any questions I have. I am looking forward to getting to know her better.

The fourth flatmate is Ann and she is a third year medical student. I have barely had a chance to talk with her since she is gone so frequently. She is from southern Norway.

Callie and I on the bus

On Wednesday, Callie and I along with other international students went to the police station to register. The wait in line reminded me of the DMV. The visit consisted of confirming my place of residency, being fingerprinted, recording my signature, and taking my picture for my residence card. I was relieved to be completely registered with Norway and not to have to worry about anymore official documentation for now.