Sophomore Year Classes

Applied Statistics I
This class was taught by Eric Nordmoe.  I took it to fulfill my quantitative reasoning requirement for K.  I took AP Statistics in high school, so this class was a total review for me.  I don't know that I really learned anything new in the class, and I probably could have done almost as well in the class without ever attending a day of lecture, but it did refresh my knowledge in statistics.  It also gave me a chance to show my knowledge of statistics, which has led to one of my jobs, TA and tutor for the Stats I class. overall I liked the class well enough and enjoyed having an easy class for fall quarter.  Final Grade: A

Psychology of Prejudice
Gary Gregg taught this class that introduced many theories about the root of prejudice.  I found it to be incredibly interesting and I really learned a lot from the class.  We read three books and countless articles for this class.  The readings were all very worthwhile and lecture was, while not always the most exciting, very informative and thought-provoking.  Instead of a final exam, we had a twenty-page final paper due at the end of the class that I chose to present as a webpage .  My paper was on racism in Australia, a topic that i knew nothing about gong into the class, but now feel very knowledgeable about.  Final Grade: A

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Jon Holtzman was not exactly the most inspiring professor, nor the best lecturer I've ever had.  At the time I really disliked the class, but looking back (just a few months later) I see that I really did learn a lot about world cultures.  Taking this class at the same time as Psych of Prejudice was a stroke of luck because the topics were very similar and I was able to apply knowledge from each class to work in the other.  For my final paper I wrote on something I had always wanted to know more about, Sherpas in Nepal.  I thoguht the paper was great fun to write because Ii really wanted to learn about sherpas.  I did rather poorly on my first test in this class, but with an incredible amount of studying and hard work I was Able to pull my grade up.  Final Grade: A

Adolescent Development
This class was taught by Cathleen McGreal.  While she was well intentioned, I certainly do not feel that she was a very good professor.  Class time did include a lot of group work, which I enjoy, but the work was not very meaningful and really didn't teach the material as I think she intended it to.  Lectures were very dull and covered only very broad material that was easily mastered while ignoring the more complex issues of adolescence.  The class also overlapped far too much the material of Developmental Psychology, therefore creating a class that was more of a review than a new learning experience.  Our video project required very little research and was not worth the time put into it, but The papers and readings were worth the effort, as they actually taught the material.  Coming out of this class I feel it was less than valuable and really did not add to my knowledge of adolescent development.  Final Grade: A

Introduction to Programming in C++
This class sealed my decision to be a computer science major.  RC McDowell did an excellent job of teaching the basics of C++ programming.  Weekly programming projects gave me a chance to really learn how to create a program in the language.  Entering the class I had no knowledge of programming and felt that the class would be next to impossible for me.  I felt incredibly incapable for the first few projects, but soon realized how much I had been learning.  I went from not knowing anything about programming to being able to create an entire project including multiple class header and implementation files, for, while and do loops, recursive functions, inheritance, vectors and pointers.  I now feel very capable of creating a basic C++ program.  Final Grade: A-

Applied Statistics II
When I registered for Winter Quarter I had no idea which classes to take.  I knew I wanted to try programming, but that was only one class and i needed three.  Since I enjoyed Stats I well enough, I decided to try stats II.  I Really did not like this class and found myself incredibly stressed out due to the workload.  After six weeks of this class, I finally decided to drop it from my schedule. 

Ceramics
I've loved working with clay for as long as I can remember, so coming into college I knew I would have to take ceramics at some point.  Ceramics was taught at the KIA, and I'd heard great things about it so I decided this was the quarter to finally take my clay class.  The facilities at the KIA are very nice, but I was disappointed in the teaching and the amount of time spent on the potter's wheel.  In the past I'd spent entire semesters using the wheel, but this quarter I had only 3 classes with it.  I was also very disappointed in the number of firings during the quarter, as it I was not given ample time to glaze and complete my projects.  I came away from the class with a few projects that I really like, but I generally was not satisfied with this course.  Final Grade: A-

Data Structures
This quarter I learned the difficulty of balancing being on the tennis with a difficult class.  As in Programming, I entered this class with no knowledge of the material to be covered, but I left the class feeling very confident using Java.  Alyce Brady was sometimes hard to follow as her teaching style differs greatly from that of RC's structure, but she was able to convey the material to me in a way that allowed me to ask questions and interact with her in order to learn it better.  I left this class with several new projects that involve more than just a "fish" swimming in an aquarium.  I very much enjoyed Data Structures and I know I will make use of my Java programming skills again in the future.  Final Grade: A-

The Physical Earth
I loved this class taught by Dr. Tom Smith.  I learned about different types of rocks, how to classify rocks, and how rocks are formed.  I thought Dr. Smith was an excellent teacher.  There were about 60 students in this class, but I always felt comfortable to ask questions and contribute to the class discussion.  Dr. Smith never acted like any question was a stupid question; the atmosphere of this class was so welcoming and really encouraged learning.  After taking this class, I really wish there were more geology classes at K college for me to take.  Final Grade: A

 

Created: March 3, 2001
Last Updated: February 18, 2002
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