Academia

So, I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile, but you know once that initial impulse to reflect on academics, politics, and life passes or gets overrun by time…it goes on the list. And lists involve prioritizing, and blogging is simply not a priority.

But tonight I need to get a fantabulous amount of writing done, so I figure why not start it off right by getting my fingers working by posting.

It’s been a long, rough fall for many and various reasons. But one thing I haven’t really got a chance to do is reflect on the academics of it all.

Classes…the bane of my existence and yet the inspiration and impetus for so much learning.

This semester has been an interesting mix…International Relations and International Economics (for my major), Ideas and Power in Latin American History (minor), Psychology (Gen Ed), CC Seminar with Prof. Schwehn called Making Things Right and finally an independent study in Arabic.

I always find it interesting (sometimes frustrating, sometimes mildly amusing) how classes end up connecting, overlapping, and supporting each other in various themes and areas. Obviously some of the above have obvious overlappage. For example, unsurprisingly international relations and international economics have both posed questions about globalization, liberal economic theories such as free trade, put emphasis on world politics, and posed questions about hotly debated topics like outsourcing.

But other connections have been made as well; general psych is certainly not my favorite class (and I’ve actually made skipping class an artform at 9:00 on MWF and have managed to only miss one of the random quizzes thus far which actually tabulates our attendance grade) HOWEVER, there’s no doubt that political scientists built international relations theory based on human psychology, and blatantly stole many terms from the dear psychologists. Although I’m thankful that they don’t descend into Freud too often…just a little bit of nature vs. nurture, none of this Freudian attempts to blame everything on our parents’ pottytraining techniques…

So, Psych, yes. Fairly unexciting, but since I’m taking it pass/fail I’ve been able to digest the information, get decent grades on the tests and not stress. Lovely. We’ve studied sleep, memory, personality traits, behavior, historical psychological techniques and trends in how people have viewed human psychology. The lab is fairly tolerable as well.

A few quotes that I find amusing from the margins of my psych book:
“I love to sleep. Do you? Isn’t it great? It really is the best of both worlds. You get to be alive and unconscious.” Rita Rudner
“When a man can’t explain a woman’s actions, the first thing he thinks about is the condition of her uterus.” Clare Boothe Luce
“It wasn’t what I expected. But facts are facts, and if one is proved to be wrong, one must just be humble about it and start again.” Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

International Relations is not difficult and certainly not terrible thought-provoking in terms of class discussion or academic challenge…but it is what I’m most interested in. So, the class does frame a lot of international relations theory for me and help give context for the things I’ve been reading for the past 9 months. I love Prof. Blackmon even if she does ask easy questions and I’ve certainly enjoyed talking to her about world politics and such.

LA History…boring reading…overall not-too-exciting in class, BUT still has had merit as a class. One because I really enjoy being in a class with professors who just ooze academia, knowledge, and seem to care not only about ideas, philosophy, and their subject but also about teaching. Former Dean Trost is one of those Professors. And I can’t not listen too him in class…okay I can multitask (in both this class and Latin American History I’ve sort of began a bad habit of reading my Economist while paying attention and taking notes. It’s a talent, I know).

We have covered some interesting ideas…but as I’ve explained to others, I find there is three levels to learning about a particular region. The first level is learning the basics of culture, history, politics, events of a country/region. The second level is understanding the reasons why those things happened. The third level assumes you know everything about the first two level and then really digs in deep to those issues…this class is on the 3rd level. And if it was on the Middle East I’d be in heaven, instead I’m sort of in academic confusion.

Luckily, Trost gives essay tests…and I EXCEL at essay tests.

I do not excel at econ tests. However, I am fascinated by International Economics.

This is a problem. I’ve really enjoyed having Professor Raman, and digging into topics like globalization, international economic theories of free trade and comparative advantage, and beginning to understand the themes that I picked up on in DC and in my Economist readings…(are you sensing a trend for my love of the Economist publication???) So its been fascinating, but man I have to work really hard to understand sometimes. And I don’t have the time too do that which frustrates the inner academic in me…until I give up and just study as hard as I can and realize that I will never be the next Ben Bernake, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs or Alan Greenspan. Sad Day.

Arabic + Hannah = Not friends.

That leaves with me Making Things Right… I think this semester I’ve lost my edge in terms of being able to say intelligent things in class and add meaningful bits to discussion. Or perhaps I’m just in class with the most articulate professor ever and classmates who all ooze intelligence (except for the one who FALLS ASLEEP IN CLASS…super disrespectful).

But it’s been some really interesting reading: tort law texts, Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, In the Bedroom (Andrew Dubus), Nonviolent Atonement, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Norman Maclean’s Young Men in Fire, Anselm, and a bit of Tolstoy that we’ll read in the next couple of weeks. Some of the best writing that I’m sure I’ll ever encounter…and some really profound thinking I think I could be doing. Unfortunately, I haven’t really let this thoughts get too deep, perhaps partly because my mind is somewhat made up about how to make things right in the world and I feel as if going back into the peace and social justice debate of last fall would be unwise for me at this point. But this class has raised lots of other issues about justice, truth, reconciliation, atonement, faith, love, loss, regret…I think in the long run I’ll be very glad that I took it. But I’m not sure I can really explore all of those themes to the fullest extent right now. Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Anyway, I think I’ll also be very glad that I did my honors thesis in this class and with Prof. Schwehn. He’s helping me explore some of the above issues that I need to do for my paper in some really good ways, and also holding me accountable to my schedule which is also helpful.

So those are my classes. That is my academic life.