Differences between UNC and Sciences Po:
- The size. I knew that school here would be smaller than school in America (this mentality pretty much applies to everything over here.) But it is so so much smaller. There is only one library. It is 5 stories and there are only a very small fraction of the books on the shelves (I can’t remember, but I’m almost positive that its under 20%.) The rest of the books are in closed stacks and you have to fill out request forms to check them out. You can only check out 5 books for 2 weeks from the closed stacks and 4 books from the shelves for a week, with an overall cap of 15 items checked out at one time. The library closes around 9 during the week and 6 on Saturdays (it isn’t open on Sundays.) At UNC, there are many libraries (I’ve only used 6 of them) and it seems like one is always open (the Undergraduate Library is open 24 hours on school nights.) I am unaware of a book limit at UNC, since I once had 27 books checked out a few semesters ago (multiple research papers) Don’t even get me started on the computer “labs” here.
- Classes here are happily much smaller than at Carolina. When our class told one of our teachers that classes here were smaller, he countered that there were large lecture classes. Yeah, the largest lecture hall holds around 100 people. I have had 400-person classes at UNC (although that is the extreme, I think everyone has had one of those.) My largest class here is 60 people, and the others are 20-15 people.
- Since the second week of classes, I have had to show my student id to even enter any of the ScPo buildings, with random id checks when in the common areas. I don’t exactly know the original logic behind this, but it has stepped up after last week. Many other universities are on strike in Paris. Last week, some non-ScPo students somehow gained access to the main building (“le 27”) and camped out in a lecture hall until 3 in the morning. I personally do not think that ScPo will go on strike, first because it isn’t a regular university (its called a “grande ecole,” a topic for another post) and additionally because 2/5 of the student body is foreign, so the strike-at-the-drop-of-the-hat concept is probably a little more foreign as well. At Carolina, the buildings are usually open and anyone can use the library (part of that whole “university of the people” deal.) But then again, I can't even imagine a student strike at UNC.
- There are sports clubs at ScPo which I think are somewhere in between IM and club teams at Carolina. I don’t really know that much about the sports program, but I know that, for example, there are rugby matches against other schools around Paris. But nothing like March Madness :(
That said, GO HEELS
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UNC Asheville has only one library, and it is only 3 stories. (Though we have access to books at App and Western, through the "ABC Express" truck that goes between the three schools-- which I once asked for a ride when I was desperately trying to get to Boone--they said it was not for passengers)
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