Notes on Teaching in a Overseas Summer LL.M. Program

I realize, given my usual posting patterns, some may think that I have fallen into the Danube.  Some may hope that I've fallen into the Danube.  A bit of background.  Suffolk offers a LL.M. in U.S. and Global Business Law that is obtainable in three years, with intensive two-week stints each summer in Budapest at the Eotvos Lorand University Faculty of Law, and intervening online courses.  The program is designed for experienced non-U.S. lawyers, although we have three U.S. lawyers in the program this year.   It is a delightful polyglot of lawyers from all over the world, including Hungary, Northern Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Honduras, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Czech Republic, Sweden, and Iran.

It has affected my blogging in that my course in U.S. securities law goes for two hours a day in ten sessions over two weeks.  We are into the third day today, and it is exhausting. 

Some notes on the experience follow the break.

1.  The physical setting is old, old world.  I am not positive the picture at right is actually a picture of the building, but if it's not, it nevertheless conveys the feeling.  The lecture hall is a large, long rectilinear room.  Thank God the class is small enough that it fits in the first six or seven rows, because I think the curvature of the earth actually affects one's ability to see the back end of the room.  There is a computer and a screen in the room, but it's the old-fashioned multi-stage crumbling chalkboard, complete with squeaking chalk, that makes me want to sing "Gaudeamus Igitur" every time I step in the class.  (Aside:  law school building designers, do not design the room so that one's ability to use the chalkboard or whiteboard is limited every time the projection system (for PowerPoint) is in use.  This applies to ALL law schools.)

2.  The students are far more engaged and eager than in the typical U.S. class.  It's fair to say they really are here for the content.  They are NOT here for the air conditioner.  It is a constant fight between the professor and the students - given that it is about 90 degrees outside, but the students claim to be "cold."

3.  I think my class is the fairly standard mix of theory and doctrine (for an upper level and narrowly focused course), but one of the Hungarian students told me yesterday that, by and large, the U.S. professors are far more practical than the European law professors.

4.  Speak slowly and be careful about the use of idiomatic English.  Although there are funny bits of learning.  The word for pub in Hungarian is sörhaz (literally "beer house"), but I learned, sitting at the Cafe Alibi last evening with several of the students (two Honduran, one German, one Hungarian, one Slovenian practicing in Vienna), that the word also refers to the stomach of one who drinks too much of the beer - your sörhaz hangs over your belt.  I said "oh, beer belly" or "pot belly" and for some reason, this was just hilarious sounding to the non-English natives.

5.  The exchange rate is 195 Hungarian forints to the dollar.  Last night I went out to the patisserie nearby - loading up on sugar, butter, and chocolate is unbelievable cheap.  I bought this ungodly large and rich chocolate thing for 150 forints.  

6.  Expectations on the language abilities of Americans are so low that my merely being able to say "thank you" in Hungarian (köszönöm) got a rave review.  I noticed this in Greece when we were there in May.  Amazing.  Please and thank you in the language of your hosts and you are well on the way to being cosmopolitan.