Our first class began yesterday: “Introduction to International Organizations and Transnational Trade Law: Trade and Regional Integration Processes." For our semester exchange, I’m attending one semester of a Masters program titled “European Master in Transnational Trade Law and Finance” or EMTTLF. The entire masters program consists of 4 semesters of study: one here at Deusto University, one at Tilberg University in the Netherlands, one at Strausberg in France and one at Frankfurt University in Germany. There are about 25 students enrolled in the Masters program and they are from all over the world: Spain, Portugal, Turkey, China, France, Russia, Belarus and more. Our semester exchange program allows me to study with the EMTTLF for the first semester at Bilbao, and then return back to USF to complete my final semester and final year of law school. There are five other students from the States who are doing the same thing: one other from USF, two from Hastings, and two from Cardozo. As of now, the program seems very different from traditional US legal education, which is a welcome change for me at this stage in my law school career. The program is divided into modules so we take one class at a time; yesterday began the first module. This class is an intensive program, with lectures and guided group work from 9:00am to 6:00pm every day for ten days straight.
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| Deusto University, viewed from in front of the Guggenheim |
The classes seem like they will be interesting, and the group project should be challenging, considering our diverse backgrounds and varying degrees of English fluency. All of our lectures are taught in English, but each student’s comprehension level is different. Today, for example, I was speaking with a French classmate, Emily. Either because her English isn’t great, or because my accent is confusing, she was having a hard time understanding me. So, rather than struggling along in English, I switched to Spanish. This was a relatively desperate strategy because my Spanish is decent – but it’s certainly not great. Nonetheless – voila! – in Spanish, Emily and I chattered on, easily communicating. It was as if we had found our “lowest common denominator” language. This switch was an easy solution for Emily and I, but I’m a little more apprehensive that we’ll be able to find a lowest common denominator language when there are 5 of us in a small group, working on a school assignment.
