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ESem Essay #13
December 18, 2015
Welcoming Diversity?
“Welcome Home! Bryn Mawr tries its best to provide welcoming, inclusive and respectful environment as we are committed to diversity!”
Breaking the Mold at BMC
In the Mission on the Bryn Mawr College website, one of the statements says, “the College has maintained its character as “a small residential community which fosters close working relationships between faculty and students.” An example of this out of the classroom is the Community Day of Learning. While scrolling through the archive of articles on the Bryn Mawr website, I found a post about this year’s Community Day of Learning in the winter. The blog post mentioned this was the second time this event is being held, last year’s being the inaugural one.
When I first began this course I was unsure of what to expect, even just based on the title of the class. I could not tell whether it was supposed to be more broadly environmental or more personal. As it turns out, this class was both. I really enjoyed the way this class made me think closely about my own identity but then also forced me to look greatly beyond myself to the world in which I live. Thinking about these sort of things has given me new perspective that I will continue to think about beyond this class.
This is a revision of "Ecological Intelligence and Western Medicine"
/oneworld/changing-our-story-2015/ecological-intelligence-and-western-medicine
Among many options for Emily Balch Seminar, I chose the best three that interested me after collecting all the comments of upperclassmen on the class of 2019 Facebook group. And one of the comments said “Anne Dalke is one of the best professors I ever had. I don’t know if she would be teaching for the upcoming semester, but if she does, you should DEFINITELY take it.” Those capitalized letters unconsciously might have been imprinted on me, and “Chaning Our Story” taught by Anne was on my list without any further consideration.
Living With My Tongue Out
This semester, my Emily Balch Seminar, (E-Sem) began with a lot of confusion on my part. I was unaware I had been transferred into the Identity/Environment classroom and I was expecting to learn about collective memory. Thus, from the start of this course, I was distant.
In the Anthropocene, it has become vital for humankind to value the environment. C.E.
Self-Evaluation and Reflection
E-Sem was one of my most enjoyable classes this semester. I liked the small size of the class because I felt like everyone was allowed a voice to speak and it provided a more comfortable environment where we actually got to know our classmates pretty well. This helped when trying to express our thoughts, as we didn’t have to be worried about messing up in front of strangers. I also liked how, at the end of the semester especially, we got comfortable enough with each other that we could disagree. I thought that confronting and questioning each other’s ideas really helped push our conversation to the next level, as we were forced to justify our beliefs and think more deeply about whatever it was that we were talking about.