It’s the end of our first 2-month semester block and I find myself trying to formulate my final essays. Having little experience writing 2500 word papers, (I’m an engineering student – I put numbers on the board and read lab procedures) I am learning how to write “eloquently and analytically” about literature and social scientists. A whole new realm of thinking. Not only is this new but our entire class grades boil down to these one or two final papers. (This contrasts PSU where several homeworks, assignments, and exams are spread throughout the semester all building up to our course grade.) My entire grade here is down to ONE thing…no pressure.
After finishing the courses last week, I was exploring topics for my essays and reflecting on the class. Re-exploring our readings by Hannah Arendt and George Orwell and Erving Goffman, I thought, “Did I even learn anything?”. Sure, I read papers and excerpts from famous philosophers and sociologists but could I solve a calculus integral or calculate the stress in a structure? Well no, of course not. That’s when I realized that my new liberal arts education wasn’t teaching me to memorize information about the papers (or solve equations) but rather teaching me think. They wanted me to learn to think analytically – to very literally struggle with the texts – connect information and challenge what I read. I was practicing formulating my opinions and coherently expressing them to my classmates while raising new questions about my beliefs.
In fact, I found questions I didn’t even know could exist because both of my classes turned out to be completely different from my initial expectations. In my “Cultures of Everyday Violence” class, I was expecting to be bombarded with images of police violence and revolutions. While on the contrary, we delved into a course that initially challenged the definition of “violence” and we then tried to redefine it. We learned about violence being an integral part of social structures in culture, the praise of violence in contact sports, the use of violence by 20th century coal miners, and the use of Michal Chelbin’s prisoner photography. We ultimately established violence is actually cultural and even occasionally normal. I redefined my complete definition and understanding of violence and had a better understanding about violence in our cultures. THAT taught me to start “thinking like a liberal art students”.
That being said, I am no expert liberal arts student yet. I’m still new to writing papers and am working on making them coherent and analytical. As frustrating as editing papers is, I really do like trying new things and I want it to be skill that I possess. So off to finishing the papers up and setting up classes for our next block!
Location: freiburg, gERMANY