Week One

Katie D.

April 5, 2009 - 3:30 PM

Well guys, it's that time. The beginning of spring term: the weather is beautiful, classes are starting, there are events and activities like crazy, and the homework will start rolling in very soon. I always enjoy the start of a new term: getting to know my classes and professors, meeting new people, starting a new schedule of class, work, social life, and other commitments. And it's been a busy and eventful week already, which is a good sign for the coming term.

First, the class list.

I'm taking fourteen credits this term, which I'm hoping will balance out well with all my other commitments. The breakdown of the schedule is really nice, because Wednesday is the only day of the week that I have more than one class.

Mondays and Wednesdays I have an honors college seminar class on the history of Latin American Independence. I had Professor Zahler for HC History my freshman year, and am therefore prepared for a term of difficult and engaging reading, well-led class discussions, and rigorous grading on course papers. My friend Leah is in the class with me, and both of us have studied Spanish before. After all my Latin American travels I'm really excited to get some historical background and context for the countries I've visited and the little bits of culture I've had the opportunity to experience.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a Science and Society class I'm also really excited about. It's taught by the professor I had for my Global Energy Production class fall term. Professor Bothun teaches in the Physics department, and for this class he's joined by Professor John Nicols from the history department. It's a really fun combination for the class, having that blend of perspectives on the interactions between culture and science.

On Fridays I have a thesis prospectus class to help prepare for writing my undergraduate thesis in the honors college. This class won't be fun for the reasons I usually like classes (because we learn interesting things or have good discussions), but will be really helpful for the whole thesis project. I have lots of ideas and plans flying around for my thesis, but no real structure for them as of yet. We'll spent a couple weeks going over the basics for thesis writing, and then during weeks four through ten we'll each defend our prospectus, which means presenting our thesis project plans. We also have to write a prospectus, which will be about twenty pages. For the eventual thesis I'll be shooting for somewhere between thirty and three hundred pages. So it'll be great to have some plans on paper, and to be starting yearly. Thirty to three hundred pages. Yikes!

My final class is also through the honors college, and is an Inside-Out class. I've blogged about this class previously, but for those who are not consistent readers, let me give a background. The Inside-Out Program is a national program that takes college classes into prison settings. The class offered at the UO is an honors colloquia class that is taught at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Twelve honors students and twelve inmates at the OSP will be discussing literature and ethics, using works by the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, and then reading Don Quixote by Cervantes and The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This isn't charity work, human subject research, a service-learning project, or a "scared straight" program. It's just education in a different context. When I took the class my freshman year it changed my entire lookout on education, my peer groups, and many of the preconceptions about life and people that I didn't even know I had. Because of that, I will be writing my thesis on this program and its implication for encounters with "the Other" in our lives: encounters with those people who we would usually assume are not like us: they are outside our peer groups and off our radars.

It is a true privilage to be participating in the class for a second time. I will be a participant-observer, doing all the coursework, but also observing and reflecting on the mechanisms of the class: from my previous experience I know that the class works to bring radically different people together as peers, but I don't know how. Hopefully being in this class again will lend me some insight.

As far as coursework goes, I think Spring Term '09 will be one of the best ever.

In addition to this, Week One was very busy with all kinds of other things. I worked a ton with the American English Institute, welcoming a group of Humphrey Scholars to campus and helping them get settled in (this deserves a blog of its own so stay tuned). I was also re-adjusting to being in Eugene after a fabulous spring break trip, which required a good deal of time and thought. My first rough draft of the essay I'm writing for the Comparative Literature journal was due on Friday, but I got an extension until Sunday night and still have a good amount of work to do on that. Plus my friend Melissa arrived on Thursday evening and stayed all weekend, which required some planning and took up all my weekend time. It was so great to have her here, because I have had very few visitors here from Colorado, and she has been such a good friend for so many years. Plus we got to hang out in the sun, throw a party, eat good food, and watch two fabulous movies: Stand by Me and Everything is Illuminated.

If the first week is any indication of the shape of this spring term, I think I'm in for quite a wonderful time. I'll stay busy with work, the Comparative Literature essay, friends, and homework without having to spend too much time in class. Hopefully I'll also get to have many more days like today, spent sitting on my front porch in the sun, being productive and soaking up the Eugene spring sunshine.