The (Almost) Oldest University in Europe

A week before registration, class schedules are made available to students. These schedules are not available:

1. online
2. in a photocopied form

but are instead posted outside of each department's main office. There is only ONE (1) copy of course listings with their days, times, and room numbers, and it can only be found in ONE (1) specific place (outside the department's office).

This means that if a student is majoring in philosophy, for example, but he would like to take some German on the side, he's obligated to go to the German office to find out when the German classes are available.

In other words, there's no course guidebook, complete with all courses in all departments. Everything is broken down by unit, and students have to go to each individual unit when looking for classes. And each individual unit didn't post their courses until one week before registration.

So my department - which houses French, French Lit, Comparative Lit, Classical Languages and Linguistics - had an informational meeting yesterday. It proved to be completely useless, but that was sort of to be expected. The talk was boring and it was mainly for the 98% of people there who weren't doing linguistics, so hardly anything said pertained to me. Good thing, too, because French students apparently have no qualms about talking during lectures. I mean, really, just straight out babbling away about some new shirt or how assholey Uncle Fabien was being last night. I finally gave up and started reading my book.

Following the meeting, there was a mad rush to the department's hallway to consult the course times/dates. I had already done that last week (first day the classes were posted, baby!), but I sauntered over nonetheless to double check.

While most people were huddled around the Comparative Lit and French Lit sections, I noticed a girl over at the Linguistics boards. I walked over to her, and we had the following conversation:

Me: Are you registering for linguistics?
Her: Yeah... I don't think there are many of us.
Me: No, yeah, you're right. I don't think so either. So, when is registration? I thought it was today at 13.00 but today during the meeting the directrice said it was tomorrow.
Her: Yeah. It's tomorrow at 9.00.

Huh, I thought to myself. That's funny, I could have sworn it was today at 13.00. I decided to dilly dally for another hour or so, just to be sure.

Instead of dilly dallying, I spent the spare time running from department to department, filling out my electives and finalizing my plans. I ran to the English department, which is three magestic floors up from the Linguistics department. I emphasize the use of the term "magestic," which is just a nice way of saying "with really long staircases." The ceilings at the Sorbonne are high, which is lovely, but it also means the space between floors is considerably larger than in a modern building.

From the English department, I went to the Arabic department, which is also three magestic floors up. Of course, you cannot connect to the Arabic department from the English department on the third floor, that would be too easy. Instead, you have to run down the three flights from the English department, walk along the main ground floor, and climb up three more flights to the Arabic department. I made that trek more than once.

By the time 13.00 rolled around, I was pretty tired of stairs. I had slept poorly the night before (registration nightmares sort of kept me up) and had woken up early, too. So I was rather exhausted and suffering a lull in energy.

Nonetheless, I arrived at the enrollment center and got in line, only to find the director-lady (from here on out called The Directrice) saying, "If you're in this line, you're enrolling in mention FLE. This line is only for mention FLE." (Mention FLE is a sub-diploma that you can get alongside your main diploma).

Weird, I thought. I swear the linguistics board said that sign up was at this time, in this room, on this day. I decided to go investigate, but as The Directrice was now surrounded by a dozen confused students, I worked my way over to the woman posting more information on more informational boards.

I shit you not, this was actually our conversation:

Me: Hello. I'm enrolling in Linguistics, and the Linguistics board said that enrollment was this afternoon, in this room. But now the directrice has come out and said that this line is just for the mention F.L.E. So am I in the wrong place?
Her: I don't understand your problem. Everything you need to know is on the Linguistics board.
Me: No, I know, I already looked. But what she said contradicts what was written on the board.
Her: (mocking me) What she said, what she said. Well, you're just going to have to make the decision between whether you want to adhere to what she said or to what was written.
Me: Well, can't you tell me if the Linguistics enrollment is today or not?
Her: Mademoiselle, I can't know everyone's enrollment date. I suggest you go to find the answer from the information provided by your department.
Me: I already did. But apparently either the boards are wrong, or she is.
Her: That's for you to determine.

It was as if she were trying to make my life difficult. Like she wanted me to play some strange sort of guessing game. I just laughed and flared my nostrils once my back was to her.

I meandered back to the line, and magically stumbled across a linguistics enrollment form, yet another item to show me that I was in the right place despite what the authorities said. Looking over the form, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that I not only had to have my classes for first semester planned, but also for second! I bolted out the door and again went running from department to department.

Panting, I came back twenty minutes later to hear The Directrice saying, "Ok, so now the only people left in this line are people for the mention F.L.E, right?" By her tone, I gathered that all the linguistics people had already enrolled (in the 15-20 minutes that I had been running around).

I squeezed my way through the line and jumped into the room, asking if the linguistics enrollment had already passed. The woman I asked said, "You're in linguistics? Where have you been?!? You almost missed enrollment!" and she directed me to a corner booth for enrollment in linguistics.

I shit you not, it was run by the lady that wouldn't tell me if linguistics was today or not. She was the only - the only one - in charge of linguistics enrollment, and she wouldn't even tell me! What a bitch!

Anyway, there were tons of other little mess-ups, one of which I caught and brought to the attention of the Snappy Bitch. After that, she had some respect for me and thought I was ok. Suddenly, she was all smiles. She even told me she would call me if there were any problems with my enrollment. I think it will be handy to have a secretarial friend.

I'm just worried about all those other linguistics people who thought enrollment was tomorrow. Snappy Bitch will surely sink her teeth into them. Poor little lost, confused students.

In the end, I enrolled, and I'm ok. Sure, I still have to enroll individually for all of my electives in their individual departments. Because God forbid there be any sort of communication between departments. Any sort of computer system linking everybody up. Any sort of management software or common system for the entire school to use.

So electives enrollment is tomorrow. I think. Or at least, that's what the boards said.