Université Paris-Dauphine

I mentioned in my last post that I have classes at two different French universities. One of these is Dauphine. Dauphine is an economic powerhouse, like the University of Chicago. Unlike my school, however, Dauphine doesn't have a big, beautiful campus. Instead, it's housed in the old NATO headquarters, which is a big building which is beautiful in a very different way from UChicago.





I have "The European Union: Integration and Policies" there once a week. Each class period at this school is 3 hours long: an hour and half of lecture, a fifteen minute break, another hour and a half of lecture. It can be exhausting, but the vending machines right down the hall from my classroom make the break a highlight of the day (A chocolate covered waffle is one of my options).

Besides the schedule, my Dauphine class differs from typical UChicago classes in another way: when the door is closed, the door is CLOSED. No one may enter or exit. This means no tardiness and no bathroom breaks. Knowing this, yesterday I left for class a little early (Drea wasn't ready yet, so I headed out alone) because I had a bad feeling. Sure enough, in my haste to catch the departing train at my transfer station, I hopped on the WRONG TRAIN. Of course, it took me five stops to figure it out--it travelled three or four stops in the same direction as the correct train, then diverged. I realized my mistake when I saw this out the window:


instead of what I was supposed to see, which is this:



Two trains later, I arrived (panting and sweating) outside the Dauphine classroom 5 minutes after class began; the doors were closed. Lesson learned: always look at the list of stops before getting on the train.