December 13, 2016 - 22:21
Dear Jody,
At the beginning of ESEM, I did not really know what to expect from the class. From the title “Changing Our Story”, I was expecting the class to focus more about changing perceptions of different identities that stem from the cultural backgrounds and stereotypes about these people. However, after reading Bruno Latour’s excerpt about the Anthropocene, I realize that the class is focused more on the human footprint on this planet and the relationship that humans have with the earth. At the start of the semester, if I had known that this class would foster such deep thinking and existentialist conversations, I probably would not have signed up for the class. However, I really enjoyed the conversations I had with my peers and with the class. I’ve always been pretty abstract in my thoughts and conversations, and it’s a precious/rare moment for me to find people who are equally as open to having such deep conversations. I like to talk about existence and significance, about the things that don’t really provide anything but a conversation. I feel that this class reassured me that my peers are capable of having these thoughts and conversations with me instead of remaining trapped in their small-radiused mind, with thoughts that don’t reach further than their future, past, and the simple things in life. I felt reassured that my peers would not laugh at these deep thoughts, existential conversations, abstract ideas, as did many of my friends in my high school.
The beginning of this first semester felt a lot like summer camp, and things did not feel real, because I had not settled into the lifestyle of being independent. Now, at the end of the semester, I have an idea of what I want to major in, what I want to do for a profession, and how I will get there. I want to work with children, whether that’s in a preschool or as a child therapist or in research. I am excited about this, and I am excited to work at the preschool again. I’ve applied to work there over winter break and I got my position. I think it’s interesting that just the mere factor of being independent from my parents influenced my ability to make these decisions. When I was still under my parents’ roof, I felt less inclined to make these serious decisions or to even think about them, because I still felt like a child. I feel like since I became more independent and more aware of myself as an individual, I was finally able to consider these big decisions, and this also influenced the way I looked at the topics in our ESEM. I am much more aware of my impact on this planet, and aware of how my efforts will actually affect the planet. I feel that the most meaningful discussions (for me) in our class were about Ravens at Play, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Vaster Than Empires and More Slow, and Agency at the Time of the Anthropocene, and As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial. The discussions that we had in class focused a lot on our environmental impact as humans, and the ways that we can be more aware of the bigger problems. This ESEM made it a lot easier to comprehend the bigger picture of human impact in life without getting too overwhelmed.
I think that this ESEM was very interesting and I would recommend it to others, however, I would not be able to recommend the class without a warning on the workload. I felt that the ESEM had a lot of readings with not enough time (for me personally). I was taking three other very difficult classes and it was hard for me to succeed in all of them. In a way, I sort of resented the class because of the amount of reading (I felt that some of the work was given in an unreasonable amount of time). Looking back on the class now, I feel that I accomplished a lot, and learned a lot. My thinking broadened and I learned how to interpret really difficult texts. It changed the way I look at environmental issues and the human impact on the planet. I'm mostly very satisfied with the way this class influenced my thinking and the way I converse with others to help my learning experience.