Classes!

Today I had my first week of classes. To recap, I'm taking Scottish Ethnology, British History, and British Art from 1759-1824. I have two classes and a tutorial on Mondays, 2 classes and a tutorial on Tuesdays, 1 on Wednesday, 1 on Thursday (every other week I also have a tutorial) , and 1 on Friday.

Both Scottish Ethnology and British History are introductory courses. Very large lectures. They're both also full year courses, and as a visiting student, I'm allowed to just jump into the second half. In the case of Scottish Ethnology, there are more visiting students than full year. In the case of British History, there are very few visiting, which was a little overwhelming for the first lecture given that I didn't have any background. However, I think it'll be okay. The British Art course is my only upper level course and consequently is much smaller. We're frequently having class in various museums here in Edinburgh, with the the Scottish Portait Gallery being on Monday, which I'm really excited about.

The Scottish academic system is rather strange. They give you a big ass list of books that you can choose to read, but it's entirely up to you to determine what you want to read. Because they give you such a big list, Scottish students mostly use the library to do their reading, which unfortunately makes it moderately problematic to get access to what you need to read because everyone already has it. But they do have a ton of things on various degress of reserves so hopefully it won't be *too* problematic.

I think I'm really going to enjoy Scottish Ethnology and British Art History....British History is still a bit up in the air.