Maynooth, Ireland

Slainte, international students! ("Slainte" is Irish, or Gaelic as we Americans call it, for "cheers." It's a common greeting, expression of thanks, toast, and saying for almost anything here in Ireland.)

My name is Liz, and I'm currently a junior at Boston College spending my spring semester abroad at the National University of Maynooth in Ireland. Maynooth is located in County Kildare, Ireland. It's a small town about 40 minutes west of Dublin, and I do mean small. The main town itself isn't much more than two streets lined with shops, banks, cafes, and pubs, and college kids are everywhere. It's the best of both worlds because Maynooth has a real college town feel, and a big bustling city lies close by in Dublin. In that sense, Maynooth is actually pretty similar to BC. Also like BC, because NUI Maynooth is located outside the city, it has a large, sprawling campus with lots of green space (not that green is hard to come by in Ireland!), so you definitely get that campus feel.

That's about where the similarities between NUIM and BC end, though. At BC, most students take 5 courses, but at NUIM, we take 6. The courses are radically different, though. At BC, for example, attendance is often a pretty significant part of your grade for a course (or it's at least factored in). Only two of my classes at Maynooth take attendance, but we're only penalized when we miss half of them. At BC, we're penalized once we miss three! For the rest of the courses, it's up to you to go to them. Another thing I've found different is that the professors at NUIM (all but one of mine) use slides and always put them up online. I've actually heard the phrase, "These are on Moodle (the student website), so there's no need to write the notes down" more times than I can count. The biggest difference is that fewer assessments make up the grades here. At BC, especially last semester, I'm used to having three papers and a test most weeks of the semester. At NUIM, however, most of the courses are assessed by either one test or paper at the end, or one in the middle and one at the end. It makes for a pretty relaxed semester right now, but I'm sure it will get stressful at the end. Another huge difference is in the course readings. We get a large course bibliography at NUIM, but they're all "recommended" rather than required. They're mostly for our own further reading on topics covered in lecture instead of the primary sources for the class, like at BC. Classes at NUIM are also much larger, especially English courses. My two English courses here are in huge lecture halls that seat over 400, and when everyone comes to class, the lecture hall is filled. I've had one English course in a big lecture hall at BC, but it wasn't 400+, and it broke into a weekly discussion group of 10-15 kids. Moreover, we had some kind of assessment on every book covered at BC. At NUIM, though, our assessment is on just one of the works we cover...and it's one of our own choosing.

Outside of academics, the lifestyle in Ireland is also pretty different from that of BC. Everything is a little slower here, and everyone is much more easygoing. You don't run into people frazzled and jacked up on caffeine after an all-nighter in the library here. The social scene is really different from BC's, too. At BC, weekends are the nights for socializing. At Maynooth, though, because most of the students are Irish, a lot of kids go home on the weekends, so socializing during the week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday) is huge. Mondays are huge for going out at NUIM, a concept that still blows my mind. A typical Monday night at BC would be me staring at my to-do list for the week, waiting for Gossip Girl to start, and wishing for the week to be over. Another difference that I'm still getting used to is the lack of a mealplan. There are, like I said, cafes in town and places to get food on campus, but unlike at BC, it's paid for with "real" money, not BC dining bucks or Eagle bucks (which I like to think of as Monopoly money). It's more independent living, then, since we're doing our own grocery shopping and cooking - something I didn't experience at BC since I've always lived on campus without a full kitchen - which is good preparation for the scary real world after college.

So, even though I get an occasional pang of nostalgia for BC, and a more than occasional craving for a latte from Hillside, I really am loving my experience studying abroad so far. I've had the opportunity to travel to Paris, Barcelona, Belfast, and London so far, and I'm going to Brussels and Amsterdam in a few weeks - weekend trips I'd never be able to take at BC. Ireland might not be as radically different from the States as some other abroad programs, since they do speak English here, but the culture here is distinct, unique, vibrant, and energetic. It's been great so far just living here and taking in the culture around me. Everyone in Ireland is just so friendly, and if you ask them how they are or how things are going, it's always "grand" or "lovely" or "gorgeous." It's pretty hard not to catch on to that mindset.

That's all for now. Slainte!