New languages, new discussions

Last tuesday classes started, so now I'm enjoying my first weekend after a regular week of going to the university, studying and meeting friends. Until now, classes haven't been too demanding, so I don't have to study all day and night. Actually, many of my fellow students also work part- or full time, so for me it's not too hard, concentrating just on my courses. This also allows me to take some more courses than stictly necessary. Next to the two mandatory courses History of the International Trade System and International Trade Theory and Policy, I'm also taking Intermediate Microeconomics and Intensive Elementary Arabic. And I must say, that last course is intensive! Instead of once a week, like the other courses, Arabic classes are every day. We have homework every day, so I'm regularly trying to learn the new writing and pronunciation. And I must say, it's great to learn a new language. I wanted to learn Arabic already for some while, and to really do that now is wonderful.
Like Arabic, economics can be seen as a language as well. Especially here it's seen as the most important factor in making policy-decisions and analyzing the results of any taken measure. So I'm happy that I get a chance to interact with many more people by learning to use those new languages. And while economics is basically about numbers and models, the teachers here are continuously stressing that it's just an imperfect model of reality. That reality is much more complex and that there will always be benefits and costs to any economic measure you might take. Actually, I'm relieved to hear that, because going to Washington I was afraid to hear nothing but the infamous Washington concensus: that countries should just practice free trade and that everybody will benefit from that. But academics do have a more nuanced view of how things work, and the Washington concensus had already been the subject of discussion for a long time. I'm looking forward to the discussions on economic theory we'll have in class!