registration

Hi, everyone! A big apology-shout-out to my dad, because it took me so long to write this entry and in fact it’s been so long that the entry is hardly relevant anymore. Still, though it may be stale, I think it’s a helpful topic for anyone considering going through the same process (viz. education in Senegal).

Let’s take a look at my journey to register for classes at Cheikh Anta Diop University (the big, government-funded university in Dakar). This journey, as I mentioned in a previous post, was very arduous. In fact, I had to give up the idea of attending university classes completely, although I had been looking forward to them since around this time last year, when I first discovered Wells’ program to Dakar.

In the course catalogue that was originally sent to me, I saw many exciting classes, and a few that would help me fulfill some requirements at my own school (for example, Advanced French Grammar, where we’d get to do a research project on things like the effect of colonization on standardized French. How nerdy-cool is that?). However, when I arrived, I discovered that most of the classes advertised in the catalogue and online were university classes. What the program administrators didn’t tell me is that they highly discourage taking classes through the university, due primarily to frequent student strikes (which carry over from the colonizer)—usually concerning money in some form—and the fact that the US semester doesn’t link up easily to the French system.

I was extremely crushed to realize that it would not be as easy as I had thought to take all these cool sociology and French classes. Still, I was determined to try. So I took out the university course catalog, wrote down some times and places, and set off for the university to try my hand at “Sociology of Work.” As this was a UCAD class, I had expected to have to stand, or even to peek in through the window. However, when I entered Salle 3 at the prescribed time, the room was stark empty! There was absolutely no one in there. This is how it went down [roughly translated]:

• CLAIRE: Hi, I’m here for “Sociology of Work,” but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in the room. Can you help me figure out where it might be?
• RANDOM PROFESSOR: Hm… I don’t think the professor has come to that class once during this entire year. It doesn’t exist, in fact.

Okay, that’s a definite setback—a non-existent class! After hearing that, I was discouraged, particularly since I didn’t have much extra room in my schedule for any of the other classes listed in the sociology department. I ended up not taking any classes at the university, since none of the staff at the research center seemed to be willing to go out of their way to help me figure out the process.

Long story short, I’m pretty sad that my course schedule was limited to WARC classes. While many of my classes are satisfying, educational, and topics I wouldn’t get at Hillsdale—History of Islam and Wolof are my top two—it would have been nice to know beforehand that my options would be so severely restricted.

Speaking of registration in general terms, it seemed to be a very casual process even at WARC, considering that these classes are (hopefully) going on my official transcript. Basically, we all just had to write down the classes we wanted to take. When we needed to make an edit, we simply took a dark pen and scribbled out the necessary lines (as I did a few weeks in, with French-English translation). A far cry from the nerve-wracking professor’s-signature-obtaining and registrar-visiting to which I surrender at Hillsdale.

Now you know all about registration (or at least a little bit)! If there are other topics you are interested in hearing about, just let me know.