First Week

I’ve survived the first week of classes, well more like the first two days since classes didn’t start until Thursday. On Monday and Thursdays I have European Business Strategy at 8:30am. With such an early class I have to wake up at 6:40am to make sure I leave my housing at 7:30am. Not a huge fan of waking up early, but hopefully I will get use to it. After my early class I have a long break so I find this time to be perfect for doing homework or exploring the city. At 1:25pm I have my next class, Gender and Sexuality in Scandinavia. One interesting note about my professor is she is originally from the Indianapolis area and went to Indiana University. When she studied abroad she met her Danish husband and now she has been living in Denmark for a while. When she said she went to IU, I couldn’t believe it. I came all the way to Copenhagen to learn and one of my professors is from IU. All I could think was how awesome and what a small world. The class seems like it will interesting learning about the differences in Denmark and other countries, such as prostitution being legal here, page 9 girls (girls with little clothing telling about themselves), and nudity being allowed on the front of daily newspapers. After that class I have another break until my International Marketing and Branding class at 4:25pm. My professor is really nice. He even invited the whole class to his house to eat a home cooked Danish meal and to meet his family. Sadly, I leave for school when the sun is down and return back home with the sun being down. I can’t wait until the days start getting longer so I can see the daylight. I guess I should find those heating lamps in the DIS building.

My Tuesdays and Fridays consist of two classes. I start the morning off at 10:05 with my Copenhagen: History and Contemporary Issues. The class will discuss the architecture of buildings around Copenhagen and how Copenhagen’s history shaped the architecture. Once that class is over I have another huge break. My final class of the day is Leadership across Cultures, which starts at 2:50pm and ends at 4:10pm. I’m not a huge fan of the time because it will affect my traveling over weekends, but I have to take the class since the class is easier than the one we have to take at IU. Since the class is easier here, half of the students in the class are from IU.

Now you may be wondering about Wednesdays, but here we have them off so we can have field studies. Field studies are the chance for our classes to go to businesses and observe firsthand how something is run.

With this being our first weekend here, DIS threw all students a Welcome Party on Friday at dance club downtown. It was so much fun and a great way for our floor to really hang out together. The next night, our SRAs took our entire floor on a pub crawl. We started the evening out in the red light district of Copenhagen and then went to nicer parts of town. At one of the bars we were told to leave because the bar wanted it to be quiet, but with 40 some American students quiet is not an option. It was really nice to see the different bars Copenhagen has to offer and I look forward to going back to some of them to experience more hygge – the Danish term for cozy feeling.

With my first week in Denmark almost over, I can say I am loving the city and still in shock that I will be living here for 4 months.