A few weeks back, I had written about being an English major. Now, I'm going to touch base on school related topics again but this article will have a different approach. I've always taken my education very seriously. I graduated high school with honors and even surprised myself with how well I managed during my freshman year of college.
I consider myself to be "too school for cool," if you know what I mean.
Recommended for you
Schoolwork isn't as easy for me as people think it is, though. Over the years, I've noticed that a lot of people, some family members included, like to think that all aspects of my education just come to me naturally. That I don't have to study for anything, I just learn the information and it is forever engraved into my brain. I would love it, if that was the case. Sadly, it isn't, and I make up a single portion of the millions of unlucky students who have to work their fingers to the bones when dealing with certain subjects. I'm much more right brained, so the things that do come naturally to me tend to involve the arts as opposed to math and science.
That being said, I still struggle when it comes to picking classes sometimes. Although I find enjoyment in school, that doesn't mean that I think all of the courses I take will have a huge impact on my life. But one thing that college has taught me is that I can't be too judgmental about a class before I experience it.
There are two classes that I'm taking this semester that come to mind right away when I think about classes that I didn't think I would like: poetry and philosophy.
When I realized that I would have to take a poetry class to fulfill a requirement for my major, I was terrified. For an English major, I had very little interest in reading poetry. That's probably because I always thought that I was bad at interpreting it. As much as I loved my English classes in high school, there weren't many opportunities to expand upon different views of literary work, especially for poems. When my classes would look at poems back then, the meaning would often come directly from the exact words that were written on the page and there was little time to discuss what else the words could possibly mean.
I was often told that what I got out of a poem wasn't correct in some of my high school classes and that was always disheartening to me. In fact, I was so discouraged that on the first day of my poetry class this semester, I told my professor that poetry was never really something that I was good at. He smiled and told me that it was alright and that not everyone has the same strengths.
When I told my professor that I was an English major, his smile widened and he uttered a nervous, "oh.."
Since then, I've learned that it is acceptable to look at poetry from different points of view. In this class, I'm told not only to look at the meaning of the poem for what the words say, but to consider what else the piece could mean. Poetry class has built my confidence up so much.
My professor is one of the most brilliant people that I have ever met. I think part of the reason for that is because he has managed to allow me to open my eyes to so many new possibilities. Before this class, I never enjoyed reading poetry. Now? I yearn to go out and buy copies of Walt Whitman's works. Before this class, I had only written two poems in my life. They weren't very good and didn't even compare to Dr. Seuss poems. Within the past week, I had written two poems for this class, both of which were serious and did not follow a rhyme scheme. Before this class, I had never expected that poetry could ever be something that would make me cry. Again, I was proven wrong, for I have found myself holding back tears multiple times as my professor would read poetry to the class.
Philosophy isn't a course that I thought I would hate but I did wonder how much I could actually get out of the class. I've never studied any kind of philosophical belief before this year. Don't get me wrong, I've always been intrigued by theories, no matter how ridiculous they may seem, I just never had an opportunity to take a class like this before. What worried me was that this particular philosophy course was all about ethics. That sounded so boring to me, to be brutally honest. Some of you who read this may agree but let me tell you that I was, yet again, proven wrong.
Four months ago, if you would have told me that I would one day find myself intrigued by a class that was all about the difference between right and wrong, I probably would have laughed in your face. Now, being honest, I find it difficult to shut up about the things I have learned in that class.
Right and wrong are so much more complex than what they seem. Did you know that what is right in one ethical tradition may be considered wrong in another? I didn't. In fact, I didn't even know that there was more than one way of looking at morality. There are tons of different ways, such as Social Contract ethics, Natural Law ethics and Deontological ethics. Those are just a few that I had learned, but that's not even all of the ethical traditions that this class covers.
Similar to my poetry professor, my philosophy professor has allowed me to see things differently as well. He's another person that I feel grateful to have met. I think his enthusiasm about the subject is something else that made me feel more engaged in what I've been learning. Have you ever had a teacher who made it a bit obvious that they didn't fully appreciate what he or she was teaching? That makes learning extremely difficult, for me, because I'm not a visual learner. The best way for me to learn is through hearing someone talk about the subject in a thorough way. My philosophy professor not only knows what he is talking about like the back of his hand but its obvious that he enjoys the subject that he teaches. I respect that a lot.
I just discussed two classes that I didn't think I would like that somehow ended up being my favorite classes this semester. What's the point? I know how troublesome fear can be, especially at the most crucial stages in your life. I'm not saying that everyone will have the same experiences as me. What I am trying to make you realize is this, if you let yourself be held back by fear and expectations, I can guarantee that you will miss out on so many wonderful experiences. Whether it be in relation to education or anything else in your life, it is okay to be afraid of things that you are not familiar with. It is not okay to let that fear control you completely.
As my poetry professor once said, life is like a huge conversation. Some people are already more experienced in what they are talking about and others are not. However, we are all standing on the threshold between what we know and what we don't know. We just have to allow ourselves to join new conversations and learn as we go.
