Campus and Classes

This was my first week of classes. I've been pretty busy, as you might imagine. I did manage to find time for a photo tour of campus. Hurray!


This is the apartment building where I live.




Pope John Paul II and his library. People here are crazy for the guy. The Pope John Paul II Society has even more members than the Harry Potter Appreciation Club.


The Aula Maxima. Lots of musical performances in here.


The campus chapel. Currently unused except for the Christmas choir concert. It's really beautiful inside.















A poorly shot panorama of St. John's Square in the middle of South Campus (the cool, old part of campus). I only have one class (History) down here.



A few shots of Maynooth Castle, which is about twenty feet off campus. It's not that impressive these days, as only the keep and the gatehouse remain intact.


I'm taking six classes this semester (the equivalent of 15 credit hours in the States). Mostly, I'm taking gen eds, but there are a few classes related to my majors.

Advanced Topics in Computer Science - This is the topic I'm most excited about. Every six lectures, a different professor comes in and teaches a subject they currently do research with. I'll be learning about things like information theory, multiple view geometry, and other cool things.

Graph Theory - Higher level math. Seems like a lot of fun so far.

Microeconomics - The teacher reads Powerpoint slides for an hour. Luckily, these slides are available online.

Biological and Developmental Psychology - Seems like an interesting topic (and definitely an interesting professor). However, I think this class will be the least useful to me, career-wise.

The Irish Sociological Imagination - Although we'll be examining a few Irish issues, this class isn't as focused on the Irish as I expected.

Ireland Since 1800 - This class, on this other hand, is. I haven't been to this one yet. This lecture is only once a week and I had to miss the first class so I could register for classes. Did I ever say that Maynooth does things at the last minute? I meant they do it a few minutes afterwards.

Interestingly, Maynooth does not seem to be a liberal arts college. You sign up for a 'major' and your classes are almost exclusively in that subject area. Internationals are exempted from this, but it means I'm taking most of my classes with freshmen. Ever been in a lecture theater with two hundred kids fresh out of high school?

Luckily, I was never like that :)