I knew beforehand I would only serve as seat decoration but I had a faint hope that I could at least answer some questions just by my knowledge of the classes. That hope flew out of the window as soon as I saw the first question. The only reason I didn't leave after 5 minutes is that a) it's not allowed to leave within the first 30 minutes and b) I wrote a full page of complaints on the evaluation form.
See, the thing is that at the start of the semester the description read that the course was accessible for all students of the arts department. And with the other 3 Middle Ages courses, this was true. Even if you didn't know a thing about the Middle Ages or the Crusades or the history of medieval Europe things were explained in such a way that you would know what the most important events were, what were the causes and what were the aftermaths.
This course about Rome tho... nada. It dealt with history, art history, and there was just too much of it. The course was taught for the first time by 7 different teachers and there was no way to determine what the major lines were. What was more important, the art, the history, the architecture?
Although some teachers taught their stuff in a general way for all to understand, it was especially the people dealing with art history and architecture that often gave me the feeling I knew even less than before I entered their class. At first I thought it was because I had no history in art. I had had a course on 20th century American Art but that's pretty useless when dealing with early Christian churches or the St. Peter. So that is what I wrote on the evaluation sheet. With a finishing sentence that wondered who had the brilliant idea of putting three medieval studies exams in three days. I am not a robot. See you in August at the retakes!

I'll be meeting some classmates for lunch soon which is a good way to take my mind off things. After that, it's the Take Home Exam for North American multi-culturalism. And then... WEEKEND!!!