Campus THEN and NOW Series – Part 5: Columbia Hall

Caitlin H.

October 13, 2009 - 4:48 PM

Columbia Hall has an interesting history. The building rests on a sight that was formerly the Men's Gymnasium. Now Columbia is home to one of the largest lecture halls on campus, which seats just over 500 students - the room is built into the foundation of an old swimming pool. Columbia is also home to the environmental studies and science departments which is one of the departments I am involved with on campus.

This term I spend four hours of my Friday afternoons in the basement of Columbia working on a Geology 318 Field studies course. Actually that makes it sound worse than it really is; we spend a lot of time out in the field, and the class only lasts half the term (five weeks). I was particularly pumped for this course when I registered because I knew the instructor, Dave Blackwell, from a previous course I had taken on the geology of the national parks. I really enjoyed Dave as an instructor and was truly looking forward to taking another class from him. But if we're being entirely honest with each other...this class is kind of hard.

As a geology minor student I have taken a fair number of geology courses. This course however, is particularly challenging in its practical application of theory in a field setting. In other words, it is requiring a lot more than just learning material from a textbook. Usually the first day of any course you go over the syllabus of the course, give some framework to the term and discuss what you might be learning, and if there is time, start some lecture material. The first day of this course we measured our eye height, pace length, took the strike and dip of various surfaces, created a pace and Brunton map, and, as though that wasn't enough, we measured the height of a building by pacing away from the building and attempting to measure the angle of our line of sight to the roof. ...and that doesn't even include the homework assignment. The work is interesting, and it's kind of exciting to be learning some of the skills, but also, challenging.

I was pretty proud of myself when I completed the first assignment and handed it in during the second lecture. For our second class session we didn't even stay in the classroom; we loaded into three vans and drove out to a rock outcrop off I-5 to continue working on our field skills. Within the first hour of the class, I realized I had done about half of my first assignment incorrectly. I felt horrible! I made a silly mathematical error when calculating my pace length, which meant all measurements calculated by using my pace length were also incorrect. It took going out into the field and attempting to use that measurement again to realize my mistake. So there I was, standing out next to a rock outcrop attempting to measure some distances and heights by using my pace length, and incredibly frustrated with myself for messing up the first assignment. I went to go have a chat with Dave.

Luckily Dave was understanding of my error and willing to allow me the opportunity to recreate parts of my assignment and learn the material correctly. I had to entirely redraft some materials, but in the end, I at least felt proud of myself again for completing the assignment correctly. Knowing I'd have the opportunity to try again (which doesn't always happen) also allowed me some peace of mind to continue working through my second lab. We were working on mastering the art of collecting field data in our notebooks in an organized way and also practicing the skills of rock descriptions and identifications. It had been awhile since I'd been using those skills so it was a healthy mind exercise to recall that information from previous geology courses. It was also a great opportunity to work with some of my peers in the class collecting data and taking measurements.

I'm worried about how well I'm doing in the course, primarily because it is comprised of these rather large projects based around skills I have never used before. A short course, with few projects makes earning a respectable grade seem difficult to achieve, if not impossible at times. But I'm working through it. This is an incredibly busy term for me while I balance work with school and other events on campus, as well as working through the process of applying to graduate school. It's a lot to think about! But then there are nights like tonight. Nights where I really have plenty to do but I'm at a point where I need some ‘me' time. I think tonight I'll take an hour or two to just paint, or relax in front of my fireplace, anything that will reset my mind until I'm ready to conquer the next big project.