A Conversation with Irish Students

An intellectual interaction with Irish students:

American Politics- This conversation began with President Obama appearing on the TV in the common room. They were shocked when I said I didn't really like him, and they said they thought that all Americans liked Obama. I went through and explained what I didn't like about him, and they followed and understood (or pretended well!). When I told them that although I didn't identify with either party, I tended to lean more toward the republican end of the spectrum, they laughed and told me that if I was a republican, then I must be a redneck. Unfortunately, they weren't kidding, and this is what they actually thought. Does American media really come off this way in Ireland? I decided that I needed to ditch the republican label and explained some of my beliefs to them. As I explained what I believe and why I believe it, they agreed with most of my perspectives (which I didn't expect to happen). They were absolutely stunned when I told them that what they had just agreed with was a mix of both parties, but slightly leaned toward republican. They actually expressed similar frustrations with their political system and politicians.

Education System Comparison- This was an incredible conversation that really made me appreciate the American system. In Ireland, almost every college student goes home every weekend. We talked for almost 3 hours just about education. For as much as the three of them go home, they didn't seem to be as attached and close to their family as I had expected. In fact, it seemed to stem the other way, where they said they get easily annoyed with their parents and their siblings. This seemed really strange to me, so I asked them why they go home so much then. They said that in Ireland, if you don't go home on the weekends you're the weird one! I explained that it was pretty much exactly opposite at my college, and they were surprised. They were shocked when I said that I get made fun of for going home so much, and I go home around 1 weekend per month. Two of them said that they would definitely like the American system where people tend to stay on campus on weekends, but the other one wasn't quite sure. Apparently, Irish students stay involved the clubs that they participated in as kids all through college, and their games are on Saturdays or Sundays because it's the expectation that every college student will be home at that time. DCU is a university of 12,000 students, and only 1200 live on campus! They said that DCU is one of the higher lived on campuses as well! The conversation moved onto actual school hours, and I pulled up my schedule from this semester and compared it to last semester. One actually said it was "embarrassing" how few contact hours they have compared my college. I continued to explain that a typical class for me consisted of 2 or 3 exams and then a final. Here, they said, nobody does any work until the last two weeks of classes because there are no checkpoints. In the last two weeks, everyone crams and searches through past exams to try and guess what might be on it this year. They said it was nice that they didn't have to do anything the first 11-12 weeks, but admitted that they would probably learn better if there was some pressure to learn in the middle.

Economy of Irleand- I enquired about the collapse of Anglo. Both told me that they knew very little, but were able to outline the crash. Essentially, according to them, one very wealthy man owned an abundance of companies, especially in the construction industry. They said that a couple of years ago, Ireland was in such a boom that they estimated around half of the workers would have been in the construction industry. When Anglo collapsed, a trickle effect happened and most of the construction workers lost their jobs because construction essentially halted to a stop. Now, all of those workers are on the Irish version of welfare or unemployment. They speculated that it would not get better soon because instead of people going out and hiring construction companies to do work, people were going to the laid off workers and paying them cash behind closed doors to do the work that they needed done, and the workers remained collecting unemployment/ welfare benefits! Additionally they said that college is heavily subsidized by the government, and the new graduates are really struggling to find placements, so as a result they are traveling either to the states or Australia after they get their degree. Obviously this is a huge problem to have the government pay for degrees that workers use to obtain jobs and pay taxes elsewhere! They said that there are very few opportunities with the current market for them in Ireland!

I'm really looking forward to my next conversation!