A Reflection of Humanities Core

As Freshman year comes to an end, I’m tying up all loose ends and wrapping up this chapter of my life. When we were first introduced to Humanities Core during SPOP, I was rather convinced of the benefits the class would have for me. Moreover, I thought the topic was interesting so I thought that even if the benefits did not end up being that great, I’d have fun in humcore.

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Not going to lie, humcore was difficult. There were several times where it made me want to drop CHP. It wasn’t that there was a huge workload, but the expectations and demand for high quality work would get to me. I’ve always been used to having high expectations, but after a summer of laziness, trying to jump back into the high quality of work needed was rough. First quarter humcore was a lot of trying to balance the demands of humcore and adjusting to a new environment. I was really motivated at the beginning of the quarter. I don’t think I’ve taken that many sticky notes on any book or article for that matter.

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Second quarter was better. Although I changed my seminar leader, I think I was already used to the workload of humcore so there wasn’t much change. The essays were a little more difficult, but Ben was really good with helping us edit and revise. It did take some time to understand what Ben’s grading and expectations for us was like however.

This quarter, I actually switched lecture days from Monday/Wednesdays to Tuesday/Thursday. That made going to lecture harder because of the earlier time and I haven’t woken up before 11 in weeks. Switching lecture meant I switched seminar leaders again and so it was another few weeks of adjusting and relearning.

Over the past few quarters, I think I can definitely see some growth. I went from not participating at all in class first quarter to actually feeling comfortable enough to talk in class this quarter. I actually really hate speaking in class because I get anxious and extremely nervous. However, I think that at least this quarter the class environment made me feel better about speaking out and participating in class.

Would I recommend humcore to future students? To be perfectly honest, no I wouldn’t. Not because the class is terrible or anything, but I didn’t actually need these credits and it was a lot of additional stress I didn’t particularly need while adjusting to a new life in university. I think that unless you do need the class units that humcore fulfills, you’re better off taking an easier class. Not to say that we didn’t learn a lot, from Edward Said’s Orientalism to the Incan rebellions to beliefs about sex in colonial America, we did learn a lot! The class was an interesting mixture between history, writing, and art/film and I really appreciate the professors doing their best to make the topics interesting to us. However, the class just wasn’t for me.

All in all, humcore definitely made my first year a lot more interesting than it would’ve been. It was nice to have discussion leaders so readily available for help which helped with the adjustment to a college course workload. I can’t say I enjoyed every minute of this class, but we’re here now and I still haven’t dropped it, so that must mean something! I want to wish everyone good luck in all their future endeavors and maybe we’ll cross paths again in the near future!