December 15, 2015 - 03:29
Self Evaluation and Reflection
When I got the e-mail that noticed me I was enrolled in the Esem: Changing our stories, I was not so exciting but instead a little bit disappointed. I was not a person that care a lot about identity and environment in my daily life and I chose this class was just for widening my perspective and learn new things. However, I found this class so interesting due to the class discussion and readings; the professor and classmates are so intelligent and I learned a lot from them. In the end of this semester, I fall in love with this class.
Throughout the semester, I always tried to do my best not only in class but also outside class. At first, I found it hard to participate in the class well. What I can do mostly is just listen to others’ discussion and appreciate how they express themselves so well maybe because I felt a little unadaptable to the new environment. After class, the reading was difficult for me too. I have to read several times to understand the ideas of the authors and even if I did that, I still felt that I was confused. Because of those reasons above, the first week’s web post on Friday cost me a whole afternoon and a whole night, and the result seemed not satisfying still. I felt nervous to go to class, because I did not know how to participate more and I have no thoughts. Nonetheless, things start to get better after the first conference.
I really appreciate the conferences every other week. First conference’s conversation with Jody really makes me more confident with my works in the class. She gives positive encouragements and comments for my postings and made me more confident with my thoughts to talk more in the class. Also, with the confidence, I read more and think more and I found readings more interesting, especially read them after the discussion with classmates. Especially during the period of reading “All Over Creation”, the discussion among the whole class is a totally different experience for me. In high school, I never read any novel with my classmates and have discussion
The readings, writings, and discussion in this class really opened up the new world in Bryn Mawr because it was the first intensive training of the whole process in a liberal arts subject like this. Although sometimes the process of writing and reading is hard because there was always something difficult to understand or express, the dense of writing and readings help me improve my academic ability. I found I can write more quickly than the beginning of the semester now and my thoughts can be deeper when I read or write. Writing seems not that scary compared to before. Moreover, I feel more confident to speak in class. At first, I always feel I don’t have valuable things to speak, but now I find out that there is no wrong to speak out. People never judge the opinions of others, and sometimes my answers can be different from others so that is actually valuable.
The 6-week project is my first cooperate project with classmates, so I did not know what to do at all at first. I should really thank Elena and Aayzah. They are really great in creating ideas, especially in the skits. The questions in the survey were done by Elena and me and I found it really ambitious when there were a lot of people answer the questions seriously. We were so disappointed at first because the people in rainbow alliance did not reply us, but fortunately we did something to come out a good result. The regret is that I think we still need to do more and I should really contribute more, for example interview more professors and staffs and we missed several speeches actually.
I am regret that I missed two of the classes so I lost the time to stay with everyone together and learn from each other. It was really great to listen to different opinions and know how others think, and that helps me thinking. Although I said I do improve, I still should have done better. Sometimes I can be tired to think or read. I should really throw away that bad habits.
In this class, I learned more about the close relationship between people’s identity and environment. There seems still a lot of problems that needs to be solve between people and environment. People and environment are influencing each other and indivisible from each other. The contacts zones and slippages always happen in the social environment and they are changing people’s idea and identity. The natural environment is more complicated for people to deal with. What I was inspired to do after this class is not that cleared because the environment is hard to change by one’s effort, but this class really encourage me to think about and care more about the issues of identity and environment. Most importantly, I learned how to think critically.