The Single Biggest Thing I Wish I'd Known Before Taking Classes In Turkey:

Thanks to a string of connections that began with my mother and ended up with...okay, lots of people, I can now say that this entire trip would have been far easier had I (and Coe) known one thing about how university works here.

First, a quick background on how I obtained such valuable knowledge:

My mom used to work with someone who used to work in Istanbul and has friends who still work here, in charge of a team of twenty-year-olds who work on different university campuses here (oblique enough? Good. That's what I was going for).

One of the girls has a younger sister (I think she's a year older than me) who studied here for a year, and it is she who gave me the Great Advice.

The Great Advice:

Turkish universities (obviously) operate differently from American ones.

Here, it's normal to squash as many possible classes into your week as possible, and then take a couple more. Most students here take at least 21 credit hours--nine, ten, eleven classes are all normal.

When there's a "clash" (when two classes overlap), it doesn't really matter. Most professors are okay with it (I, apparently, got the only exceptions).

Because they take so many classes, it's also completely normal to fail one or two courses a semester and then just take them over again.

Had someone known this going in, holy crap my life would have been easier.

m.