SSB MUN preparations
On Wednesday it is time for the annual SSB MUN (Scandinavian School of Brussels Model United Nations). Every student in Gym have been assigned a country and a theme to work with. The three themes that will be discussed this year is Trafficiking, Migration and World Rights. I am in the country of France in the World Rights committee.
Today and tomorrow are preparing days when we get to work together with our partners to write an opening speech and study our countries closely in order to be able to participate in debates. A lot of people are excited and nervous about this event as it means speaking in front of a lot of people and also having great knowledge of a country.
100 days
Tomorrow the students in Gym 3 celebrate the fact that there are only 100 days left until we graduate! We ordered "studenttröjor" a while back, hoodies with an emblem for us graduates printed on it, and today they arrived! We are all vary excited. There is also a countdown placed in the reception together with pictures of all of the graduates.
Gym 3
When students in Upper Secondary choose to study a year abroad it is most common to do it in Gym 2, your second year. That way you move back for graduation or you can choose to stay here for your last year. However some people, like myself, choose to move abroad during the third year. The reason why I chose to move in Gym 3 is simple, I was tired of my routines and wanted a change in my life. Since I was in Gym 2 already when I decided I wanted to move it made things a little more complicated than it generally is in Gym 2.
In Gym 2 you usually have pretty general courses that are available in most places, many people study the same things. In Gym 3 the case is slightly different since it is during the third year that your courses become more specific in line to the programme you are in (Economics/Science/Social Studies). At my old school I already had a plan of what courses I was going to have but since I moved schools there were different courses available. This meant I had to carefully plan out, together with teachers from both my current and future school, my schedule to make sure I would get enough points to graduate. The positive thing about discussing things like these with SSB is that the teachers are used to compromising schedules and helping to sort out any kinks in the programme. I studied some extra courses that I could not do in Gym 3 at SSB during Gym 2 and adjusted my schedule to make sure I would be able to graduate. When this was done there were no more problems and I applied just like a Gym 2 student.
In Gym 2 you usually have pretty general courses that are available in most places, many people study the same things. In Gym 3 the case is slightly different since it is during the third year that your courses become more specific in line to the programme you are in (Economics/Science/Social Studies). At my old school I already had a plan of what courses I was going to have but since I moved schools there were different courses available. This meant I had to carefully plan out, together with teachers from both my current and future school, my schedule to make sure I would get enough points to graduate. The positive thing about discussing things like these with SSB is that the teachers are used to compromising schedules and helping to sort out any kinks in the programme. I studied some extra courses that I could not do in Gym 3 at SSB during Gym 2 and adjusted my schedule to make sure I would be able to graduate. When this was done there were no more problems and I applied just like a Gym 2 student.
The Gym 3 class is smaller than the Gym 2 class, simply because of there not being the same amount of boarding students. Many of the the Gym 3 students have lived here for most of their lives and live with their families. The great thing about being so few is that it is possible to be friends with everybody and feel connected to each other. Also the classroom is never too crowded and the teachers have time to help us all. 7 of the students in Gym 3 are boarding students so we live together with Gym 2 and Gym 1 students at the castle, this is great for us since we get to know people from all classes well.
I really recommend studying here in Gym 3. I would imagine that it is just as fun as in Gym 2 and at the same time you graduate with a group of friends instead of a big class where you don't know everybody well.
English book fair
Today there was an English book fair in the reception and it will be there tomorrow too. It gives younger students at the school the opportunity to buy English books in different difficulties to support their education they receive at school. There were a lot of young people in the reception that seemed to enjoy looking at the new books.
