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             I echo the sentiment that this course has been valuable, engaging, and broadening.  I also think it’s important to note that this senior seminar has been fundamentally different than any other science course I’ve taken in ways that are very important to me as a student.  First of all, it’s great to know that “hard science” can certainly be taught in a discussion-based seminar classroom.  This classroom structure certainly emphasizes different aspects of education. all in ways that I think are challenging, scientific, and valuable.  To be fair, I did not take away from this class the ability to regurgitate data, and if a standard test were administered to measure how much detailed information I remembered from any one presentation, I would certainly fail.  However, I value the things I did take away from this class much more than those things, included among them are

• a sense of what we do know about given topics
•  a sense of what we totally do not know
•  the creative capacity to informally design experiments to find out more about things we don’t know
•  a better understanding of the limitations of scientific objectivity
• an appreciation of how intertwined (inseparable?) culture (sociology, anthropology, philosophy) is scientific endeavors. 

In retrospect, this class confronted and challenged what’s typically thought of as “a good/appropriate/standard science classroom” and demonstrated that it can be equally valuable, that equally good understandings, that equally good questions can be produced in a different format.  I think that’s a really great thing.  This overarching appreciation certainly has been the most important take home message for me, though I found all of the presentations to be intriguing, fun to discuss, and thought provoking.  I’m interested in working in a field that relies heavily on education, and so I appreciate the ways that I found this classroom to critique science. 

         On another note, it’s been great to take this course while concurrently taking my first philosophy course, especially since it’s one that attacks the field of science.  I’ve found that in broadening my course selection, I’ve become able to see science as a field with its own problems, with its own agenda, with its own limitations.  I see science now as something to be treated skeptically, not as an all-encompassing universalistic field.  This line of thinking was certainly to be found in many of our discussions, those on disability, diversity, romance, morality, gender differences, and consciousness among them to name a few.

         Thank you, everyone, for an enjoyable semester!