Written Expression
I've always been told I have a way with words.
See my poetry corner if you don't believe me. Anyhoo, we all had to take
a seminar in written expression fall quarter of our first year here
at Kalamazoo College. I chose "Campaign '96," the hotly-contested, very
exciting knock-down drag-out catfight between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.
Okay, it wasn't quite that exciting, but Dr. Stauffer really tried to make
it so! We honed our essay-writing skills and I ended up with an A. Go figure.
Since then, I've learned the correct way (the only way) to write a social
science paper (necessary for my Sociology major) through Methods
of Social Research and endless practice. I've gotten to the point where
churning out an 8-page paper in 4-6 hours is no big deal. I'm confident
that my written skills will carry me through whatever presentations, lesson-planning,
and paper-correcting my teaching job next year will require.
Oral Expression
Having been given the opportunity here at K-College
to be both an actor
and a director, I can tell you that I am duly prepared for the rigors
of everyday oral expression. It's difficult to communicate clearly, directly,
and without offending. We all know this. Directing, especially, is a challenging
form of oral expression. Not only do you have to communicate ideas and
feelings about a play that formerly lived only inside your imagination,
you have to explain the ideas in such a way so that your actors can express
and feel those ideas on their own, and so that others (audience members)
will understand. Sometimes it takes several tries, but eventually the message
comes across, the audience is enlightened, and the reviews are favorable.
I've also learned a lot about oral expression through a class I've taken
this quarter, Neighborhood
Organizing Practicum. In this class, communication is key. If you want
people to do things for you, without pay, you have to be able to convince
them that it is worthwhile. When my group members and I went door-knocking,
we found we had about 5 minutes to convey to people in the neighborhood
that we weren't selling anything and weren't casing their house for a robbery.
Later on, when we got the neighbors to work together to clean up the outsides
of their homes, we had to communicate our expectations in such a way that
the residents wouldn't be scared off by the commitment, and yet would feel
a responsibility towards it and each other. I feel that the experiences
I've had with oral expression at Kalamazoo College will serve me well,
and for the rest of my life.
Quantitative Reasoning
When I first saw the Quantitative Reasoning requirement
in K's catalog, I had no idea what it meant. Now, having taken Quantitative
Analysis and Statistical Reasoning with Dr. Marigene Arnold, I know how
to read charts and graphs and how to make them too! I can find correlations,
read "statistical evidence" with a healthy skepticism, and discover the
flaws in Gallup Polls. With QASR, I learned a whole new vocabulary, and
some skills that served me well in writing up my Senior Individualized
Project. We learned how to use SPSS 9.0, which I also subsequently used
to make a graph for my SIP write-up. In class, we did a survey of first-year
students' attitudes toward homosexuality. The survey was informative on
two levels: it taught us about the conduction and interpretation of surveys,
and we learned useful statistics about first-year students at Kalamazoo
college. Though at first I groaned to think of taking more math, in the
end I was glad I took this course.
Information and Computer Literacy
I was very computer literate, by average standards,
when I came to Kalamazoo College. My mom has been a computer buff since
we first got a Commodore 64 in the early 1980s, and has held graphics-arts-related
jobs every since. So, I came to college with my very own Power Macintosh
clone (a rare breed that has since unfortunately become extinct) and internet
skills to boot! Most of what I've learned about computers I learned from
my mom, including a little HTML programming, Photoshop, PageMaker, Freehand,
word processing, touch typing (45 w.p.m.), various e-mail programs, Netscape,
and layout and design. This knowledge was enough to land me a job designing
and programming the Kalamazoo College Help
Desk web site in the Spring of '99, a challenging and interesting job.
However, since I still wanted more (and I needed another math/science credit),
last Fall I took Introduction to Computer Science with Professor
Alyce Brady. Alyce taught us even more HTML than I thought I was capable
of learning, plus a little JavaScripting and all about the valiant and
bloody history of computing itself. See my brilliant version of an array!
Take my X-Files
quiz! See my fake
homepage! I am most positive that my skills will be useful in future
jobs and personal life. Hopefully I can teach my skills to my students
next year--if they aren't ahead of me already!
You haven't mentioned anything about your roomates.
Tell us about these wonderful people!
This year my three good friends Megan
Martin, Felicity Hesed, and Emily Gear and I got a house off-campus
in which to live. We love it: it has a living room with comfy couches and
a hardwood floor, plus a largeish hole in the kitchen ceiling. What else
could you want?
What do you do in your spare time? (Do you
have any?)
Funny someone should ask that. It's a running
joke here at Kalamazoo College that "K" students never have any spare time.
It's not completely true, but sometimes it does feel that way! When I'm
home, I usually listen to CDs or read--I recently finished Savage Inequalities,
by Jonathan Kozol, which has made me even more committed to my chosen career
of teaching. I do spend a good deal of time with one Eric
Sindelar, who's a wonderful person. Even more wonderful than garlic
bread, if you can believe it, but not quite as filling.