I have been feeling very angry and disrespected as a student these past few days because my classes always start fifteen minutes late. When you are used to arriving five minutes early for class, as I did in the US, it’s really horrible to sit in an empty classroom for twenty minutes when there’s a TON of other things that you could be getting done!!!! (Can you feel my stress? I think I have five more stress zits already!!) Anyhow, I’m glad I asked my flatmate Zeus tonight if his classes start late, and he explained that it’s (an unwritten?) rule in Sweden that if your class schedule says the class starts on the hour, that it actually starts a quarter hour later. …OH….! It would be the best thing to happen to me all day if there was another foreign student out there reading this post and who now understands that they DO have time to grab that extra cup of coffee or go to the bathroom before class.
I have notice, however, that my Swedish language course always starts when it should. ALTHOUGH on the schedule it says it starts at quarter after… Does the rule only apply to classes starting on the hour? Or maybe it’s because none of us are Swedish the teacher knows we’re going to show up on time?? Actually, now that I think about it, it’s very lenient of the school system to accommodate late students- in the States you’d just get marked tardy and after multiple offenses have your grade lowered…
