Junior Year Classes
Poetry
Of the classes I took
while in Australia, this was by far my favorite. The class was taught
by Alan Wearne, a man who has written several books of poetry that have been
published within Australia, although none were widely read. The class
was made up of about 18 students, all but four of us were from Australia,
something that can't be said of my other classes. Each class started
with an hour and a half of Alan reading us different genres of poetry he had
selected, and then ended with an hour or so of workshopping. In workshopping,
3 or 4 students would bring in a poem they'd written, and then the class
would discuss the poem. It was an excellent way to improve my own work,
and I really came to enjoy this class. Going into the session, I thought
I would hate poetry, but I really ended up liking it. Final Grade:
B
Aboriginal
Cultures
The lecture for this class
was not required, and as a result I rarely attended it. Bill Harrison
led a dull, dry lecture in a hall for 500 people to only about 20 students
each lecture period. The culture of Aboriginal people was not discussed
nearly as much as the oppression of Aboriginal people by white Australians.
It just was not what I'd expected to learn at all, and I was very disappointed.
The tutorial section of this class was incredibly frustrating. Virginia
Falk made me feel as if I could never give a correct answer or say anything
right because I was not an Aboriginal person. She often interrupted
students, and did not promote a positive learning environment. She
taught me to question what I hear about Aboriginal people, as the best teachers
of Aboriginal cultures should be the Aboriginal people themselves, however,
she did this in a way that really discouraged me from wanting to learn or
even listen to what she had to say. Final Grade: A
Australian Studies
I'd not originally planned
on taking this course in Australia, but after hearing good reviews of the
first two class sessions from other students, I decided to transfer into
it. Catriona Elder led an interesting lecture each week on different
aspects of Australian life. The class gave a broad overview of what
it means to be Australian, and seemed to be aimed mainly at the international
student. The tutorial for this class was always very interesting and
everyone participated in the discussion, but since most of the students were
American it seemed many times to be a class about America. Even so,
I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot about the history and growth
of Australia. Final Grade: A
Logic
I took Logic simply to
fulfill one of my Religion/Philosophy credits, and while the class was generall
pretty boring, I found I was very good at writing proofs for this class and
I enjoyed the type of thinking this class required. I thought this
class was very simple in the way it was taught, and as a result I rarely attended
it more than once a week even though it met three times. Even with
my poor attendence, I did very well in this class, and I came out of it with
a far greater understanding of Logic than that I'd had when I entered it.
Final Grade: A
Computer Architecture
This was a very difficult quarter overall for me. It was very
ambitious of me to take three classes for my major all in one quarter. As
a result, I was very overstretched and did not do as well in this class
as I had hoped. Instructor Jason Atkins was not nearly as experienced
at teaching as RC or Alyce are and as a result was not able to teach the
material as well as I believe either one of them could. The material
was a bit outside my interests. I worked incredibly hard to grasp
all of the information, and by the end of the class I feel I had a fairly
good understanding of the concepts. This mastery took me until the
very end, and sadly, grades to not reflect improvement over the quarter.
Final Grade: B+
Discrete
Math
Discrete math was insanely hard for me. Dr. Fink is an awesome
professor, and while I very much understood everything that was taught in
Logic, and the two classes are closely related, the concepts covered in this
course were far more difficult for me to understand and I struggled imensely
in this course. Final Grade: C+
Calculus
II
Dr. Barth did an incredible job keeping me interested in math at 8:30
in the morning three days a week. Unfortunately interest does not
translate to talent. I got extra help from Dr. Barth outside of class
and my work did show a lot of improvement over the course of the 10 weeks,
however, I cannot say that I ever completely mastered this course. Final
Grade: B
20th
Century Art
I
did not have an incredible interest in studying art prior to this class
taught by Dr. Manoguerra. An 8:30 am slide lecture class is not the
most gripping class that can be taken, but I really enjoyed most of what
we studied in this course. The final paper required that we visit an
art museum to see the piece we decided to write on. This was such an
awesome requirement, as it really sparked my interest in art museums. I
first visited an art museum on my own will during winter quarter when I
went to New York City, and this interest really grew as I took this class
and the quarter progressed. Final Grade: A
Visual
Fundamentals
While Richard Koenig's
class is a basic requirement for the art minor, I really enjoyed what could
have beeen a tedious course. I translated as many of the assignments
as I could into digital art, and through this was able to greatly improve
my Photoshop skills. I am extremely satisfied with the work I created
this quarter. I also was given my first experience in painting. Using
acryllics I created my final project which I am very proud of. Final
Grade: A
Algorithms
This being my second course
taught by the inexperienced Jason, I was not thrilled to take this course.
I had little prior experience with this topics covered in the course,
giving me a slow start to the quater. With work, I was able to understand
the topics being covered, but the grading was all over the place. The
lectures were extremely difficult to get through do to the teaching style
of the professor, and I quickly grew very aggravated with this course. Dispite
a final exam grade of 99 out of 100, my growth throughout the quarter was
not enough to sway my instructor to weigh the exam more heavily than originally
planned, resulting in my disappointment with my final grade. Final
Grade: B+
Created: February 18, 2002
Modified: June 20, 2002
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