In other news
Oct. 12th, 2007 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitewithfishColleen just gave me an SMS (what I would have called a 'text message' at home) to tell me that we should meet a little later than we had originally planned. Today, we're trying to buy books for our classes.
Now, ordinarily for me, this is not that big an issue. I am firm believer in holding onto all my books, so I tend not to buy at the campus book store- rather I go over there just long enough to get a complete list of the books I need and their ISBN numbers (so that I get the right edition) and then I just buy them online. Fairly simple and painless.
The University of Vienna does not seem to have an affiliated bookstore, but rather a symbiotic relationship with several nearby bookstores. So, I believe I can buy most of the books that I'm looking for in nearby bookstores today. However, some classes are less clear than others about what we should be reading- one of my classes has a book list, but also will be coming out with a "Reader," a selection of excerpts from the list of books for us to read in shorter passages if we so desire. That has to be purchased from a specific bookstore in the Neue Insituts Gebäude (NIG for short). One class I'm taking focuses on women's diaries of the 1900's and while there was a great deal of talk the first day about a certain collection of diaries that are being collected as part of the professor's project, it seems highly unlikely that they are going to let us just take stuff out. This is also a "Ring-lecture", meaning that every week is a guest lecturer, so it's not exactly clear what the professors will each be wanting from us. I think also that I heard something about a collection of stuff they want us to read for the class being made ready, but I'm really still rather unclear about it.
What has been made very clear to me so far, is that the recommended reading for a class really *is* just that. If you do the reading, you'll get more out of the class, but the professors are not concerning themselves with which page you got up to the night before. The feeling is much more relaxed than Wellesley on that particular issue. (Hellz, it seems everything here is more relaxed than Wellesley.)
I'm going to talk to Alexandra about some of this stuff, at least on Monday if not this weekend.
Now, ordinarily for me, this is not that big an issue. I am firm believer in holding onto all my books, so I tend not to buy at the campus book store- rather I go over there just long enough to get a complete list of the books I need and their ISBN numbers (so that I get the right edition) and then I just buy them online. Fairly simple and painless.
The University of Vienna does not seem to have an affiliated bookstore, but rather a symbiotic relationship with several nearby bookstores. So, I believe I can buy most of the books that I'm looking for in nearby bookstores today. However, some classes are less clear than others about what we should be reading- one of my classes has a book list, but also will be coming out with a "Reader," a selection of excerpts from the list of books for us to read in shorter passages if we so desire. That has to be purchased from a specific bookstore in the Neue Insituts Gebäude (NIG for short). One class I'm taking focuses on women's diaries of the 1900's and while there was a great deal of talk the first day about a certain collection of diaries that are being collected as part of the professor's project, it seems highly unlikely that they are going to let us just take stuff out. This is also a "Ring-lecture", meaning that every week is a guest lecturer, so it's not exactly clear what the professors will each be wanting from us. I think also that I heard something about a collection of stuff they want us to read for the class being made ready, but I'm really still rather unclear about it.
What has been made very clear to me so far, is that the recommended reading for a class really *is* just that. If you do the reading, you'll get more out of the class, but the professors are not concerning themselves with which page you got up to the night before. The feeling is much more relaxed than Wellesley on that particular issue. (Hellz, it seems everything here is more relaxed than Wellesley.)
I'm going to talk to Alexandra about some of this stuff, at least on Monday if not this weekend.
