Første dag i klassen

"First day of class"

After 1 month in København I finally started class today! Real class, not the Danish language class which I was taking more for basic and general knowledge of the language and not for actual credit. I am currently enrolled in two classes: Social inequalities in health from different perspectives, and Medical anthropology - both of which are on Monday and Wednesday.

Class here starts on the quarter of the hour, so I had class at 13.15. I met Sylvia (another public health student who I knew from my home university) at Nørreport Station at 12.45 and we went and found our campus and classroom. It's in the CSS (Center for Sundhed og Samfund, or the Center for Health and Society in English) which is on the City campus. I live about 8.5km away but I bought a bike and I am planning on joining the Danish trend of cycling everywhere.

I had never been to CSS before but it wasn't too hard to find. It is a beautiful campus right acros from Botanisk Have (Botanical Garden) which will be even more amazing once the weather gets better. After a quick exploration of the building we went to class and waited outside along with the other 40-ish girls and 1 boy. At 13.15 we went into the classroom which is big enough to seat only 36 people so we had to borrow some chairs from another classroom. Luckily I got there early enough to snag a seat. It was intimidating to be seated in a class (circle style) with over 40 other people, most of whom are Danish master students.

The courtyard in CSS.

In any new situation there is always those nervous butterflies: will I find the class difficult? Will the other students be frustrated that I am the reason that the class is in English instead of their native Danish? However my professor, Signild Vallgårda, seems like an amazing person and made me feel comfortable right away. She had us go around and introduce ourselves (name, country of origin, background studies, and why we wanted to take this class). There are 2 Canadians in the class and 1 girl from the Netherlands, and everyone seems very friendly - I don't think anyone minds taking the class in English because of us. We got into small groups and discussed the social categories in health and then discussed them for the first hour of class. In the second hour Dr. Vallgårda lectured. The material is so interesting and nothing like Western offers so I feel very lucky to be able to be here learning this in my undergrad!


After class another student showed Sylvia and I where the kantine and bookstore are. We already have 101 pages to read. It is a lot of outside work but there is only one essay at the end of the class - no exams and no assignments. It's a nice change from all of the work that I have to do at my home university, but a little bit intimidating to have 100% of my mark come from one essay.