December 16, 2015 - 20:04
Changing my Story
When I chose my top three choices for E-sem over the summer, “Changing our Stories” was definitely not my top choice. The other classes I signed up for had very specific topics while the description for “Changing our Stories” was a lot more vague and confusing. After many days of indecision, I signed up for this class on a whim. Now having gone through this class, I can say I’m very happy to have ended up here. It seems almost fate-like, (along with ending up at Bryn Mawr in the first place, but that is a different story) considering the amount of learning and transformation and took place throughout the course. I can’t imagine the same kind of learning experience with any other professor or any other group of students; our unique experiences and thought processes along with Anne’s teaching philosophies, inputs, and amazing amount of encouragement. (Not that anything else would be much worse, just very different.) The initially vague class description makes a lot of sense now, as it aligns with the theme of humans being inseparable from the environment, and looking at everything holistically rather than in isolation from everything else.
Looking through all of the writing I have done this semester, I noticed both how fast time has gone by and how much has changed. My first essay was titled “essay #1 untitled” and was full of jumbled thoughts that I couldn’t organize into a clear argument. My second essay was very structured and organized but lacked any sort of complexity or tension. Throughout this course I have learned to balance these two extremes, turning my complicated thoughts into arguments (with the help of Anne, all of the students, and my tutor) and being open to complicated answers or lack thereof. I also remember being really nervous the night before and day of our first short Monday posting since I couldn’t figure out how to post on Serendip. Since then, I have started learning to write for a wider audience and myself, although I still care a lot what Anne thinks about my writing. This along with writing more complicated and flexible essays has not only made my writing better but also (slightly) more enjoyable.
I also learned in improved a lot in regards to reading and class discussion. At the start of the class, I just saw the reading as the words I needed to get into my head to be prepared from class. As the class progressed; however, I started to read while thinking about what we have learned and how the new reading relates, as well as doing closer readings and coming up with my own thoughts and opinions about the reading before class. A lot of the readings have been challenging, and I have learned strategies in breaking down dense texts and reading for an argument. I’m still learning how to be a good participant in class discussion, but I have learned that a class discussion is about putting your own thoughts in conversation with everyone else in the class, and not about yourself. I am so thankful for everyone else sharing their thoughts, as I have included them in my writing, sometimes explicitly referencing a post but most of the time blended with my own thoughts. I don’t think I could pinpoint any one person that I have learned from, as I feel like everything said in class discussion has blurred together, since our thoughts often bounce off of each other. Like what we learned with ecological intelligence, our thoughts are not isolated within ourselves but are part of a larger network of thoughts. Throughout the course I have become more comfortable expressing my own thoughts to the class in addition to closely listening to others.
I think this course has taught me how to think critically more than anything else. Even though the class is over, knowing how to think is something I can apply to anything. Despite all of the work I will do during my years at Bryn Mawr, it will not be possible to learn absolutely everything, but having to tools to think through and understand life’s questions is much more effective and all you really need.