Long list of classes to follow:
To celebrate the end of my college career, I decided to create list of all the classes I've taken at Kenyon. They're organized from my favorite classes to my least favorite. This is intended to serve as a personal reminder of my college experiences.
Mind, Perception & Film
This was a phenomenal course, taught my favorite professor. Instead of simply being about philosophy as seen in film, it focused partly on theories of film-making and partly on theories of film-viewing. Some really interesting stuff, and consistently entertaining lectures. My final paper was on video games, which was also cool.
Symbolic Logic
Taught by the same professor as the above course, this was a pretty straight-forward course on symbolic logic. The only reason it's so high on this list is because I had a strong affinity for the material and, again, the professor kept the course consistently entertaining. This was important, considering the class was at 8 in the morning. Oh, and I think I kicked ass on the final.
IPHS (Integrated Program in Humane Studies)
I took this my freshmen year, and it was far and away the best course of the year. It was a year-long, broad, broad overview of Western civilization, discussing history, literature, philosophy and even geography. In general, I don't enjoy the overview classes as much as the in-depth sort. This was an exception, as there were lots of different lectures and I got a chance to familiarize myself with lots of different writers. It had enough variety to it to keep me interested, and provided some valuable experiences. My papers all sucked, though. I got to play croquette at my seminar professor's house at the end of the course, though.
Pragmatism
I took this to fulfill my epistemology requirement for my major, but ended up quite enjoying it. It focused on Peirce, James and Dewey. There were some extremely interesting ideas, many of which will certainly stay with me. Lastly, this was the third class taught by my favorite professor.
Kant
A very good class on some very hard material, taught by my adviser. This, along with Hegel, is the epitome of an in-depth class. Our reading each week was around ten pages, all of which had to be unpacked and explained in great detail over the course of the week. Although we only covered a small amount of material, it was very rewarding. I almost wish the class could have been another semester longer. My one criticism of the class is that, while it left me with an appreciation for Kant, it also left me with the impression that it would be pointless for me to try to read him myself, as I just wouldn't get much out of it.
Hegel
This was very similar to the Kant class, and also taught by my adviser. Small amounts of reading, extremely in-depth. It was also monumentally difficult. I ended up with a C in the class and was happy to have it. Quite likely the hardest course I took. And like the Kant class, it left me with an appreciation for Hegel, but the feeling that reading him outside of a college setting wouldn't be as rewarding.
Galileo to Einstein
This is one of those science courses that's targeted at non-science students. It was taught by a physics professor, who I believe is the only professor I've had with a Wikipedia page. Most of the course was devoted to reading the writings of Galileo and Einstein, both of whom are great writers. My final paper was about ether, which was pretty cool. I wish more science was targeted at humanities students, since much of it has a fascinating history.
Early Modern European History
Ah, history. I was considering being a history major for a while. I definitely enjoy the study of history, but how much I've learned that how much I get out of it is really dependent on the professor. This is the best-case scenario, where the professor is awesome. He lectured a few times in my IPHS course, and I had wanted to take a course with him since my Freshmen year, but only got the chance second semester of my senior year. Lots of great lectures, occasionally interrupted by some less-than-stellar discussions. A thoroughly entertaining course, even if it was far from life-changing. The professor for this course just got tenure, which he definitely deserved.
Asian Art History
This was a neat class. As is to be expected in an art history courses, all the tests were gigantic memorization exercises. That said, the history of Asian art was very interesting and left me with a new kind of appreciation for it. I didn't realize it at the time, but it's really cool that I can now see a random Buddha sculpture, or a hanging scroll, and have it summon up associations with different countries, beliefs, and time periods. The course itself, and its professor, were nothing remarkable, but I do appreciate what it offered.
Intermediate Japanese
I tested into this course my Freshmen year, since I had already taken Japanese in high school. Much of this course was probably easier for me than it should have been, and I ended up with an easy A. Language courses, in my opinion, depend much more on one's classmates and professor than on the subject matter itself. In this regard, this was a very enjoyable course. I made many friends, including my future-roommate. A fun course.
Advanced Japanese / Japanese Language & Culture
These are grouped together since they're (in my mind) two parts of the same course. They featured some pretty advance language stuff and I had to work much harder than I had in Intermediate Japanese. Both featured some intense oral exams which generally lasted about 15 minutes. In Language and Culture, I had to memorize short little essays I had written in Japanese and recite them to my professor. In Advanced, we simply had to translate short essays from Japanese to English. These classes were both smaller than Intermediate, and didn't have as many cool people in them. Despite the hard work, they were rewarding though. Side note: Technically, I've had more classes with this professor than any other. They include Intermdiate Japanese, Advanced, Language & Culture, and Linguistics. He was also my default faculty adviser assigned when I first came to Kenyon. Interesting!
Political Philosophy
This was the first good philosophy course I took. It convinced that being a philosophy major was not the worst decision I could possibly make. Honestly, I didn't have much interest in the topic, but the class made it interesting. I would later ask the professor to be my adviser, so the class benefited me in that regard too. Go Hobbes.
Architecture
Another Art History course. Another dull lecturer with cool slide shows. Again, I enjoyed this course primarily for the history and for the lasting impressions it left on me. The great things about art history courses is that it made me more sensitive to parts of the world I had previously ignored.
Seminar on Contemporary Ethics
Good class, good reading, good material, good discussions. It fulfilled my ethics requirement. Nothing really remarkable about this class, to be honest. Everything was just good. I had a real hard time writing my final paper in this class, for whatever reason, and it didn't turn out very well. On an unrelated note, every time I saw this professor after taking this course, he told me I should come by his office some time so we could talk again. (We had met and talked during the course.) I always said I would and then I never did. To this day, I still feel slightly guilty. He was a nice guy.
Medieval Philosophy
I took this class to fulfill my metaphysics requirement. I ended up enjoying the class much more than I expected, as medieval philosophers haven't generally gotten much credit. The professor was a really nice guy, although he was slightly awkward at times. Still, he was an easy grader. This was the class I was tested on during the third part of my comprehensive exams, so, in a way, this class is responsible for me graduating. I will admit, though, that the final for this class was one of the (physically) most difficult I've ever taken. Most essay finals I've taken have only taken me two hours. This one was three straight hours of writing. My hand was quite sore afterwards.
Japanese Linguistics
Ha ha. Japanese Linguistics. This was a course I kept forgetting I was taking. I took the course with my Junior-year roommate, and it was a lot of fun. There were tests we didn't study for and got A's. I ended up with an A+ in the course, and laughed when I found out. Seriously, easy courses that you can make fun of with friends are some of the best. My favorite part of this course was how the professor "corrected" our homework. Before class, we were asked to e-mail in the answers to our homework. The professor, a polite, middle-aged Japanese man, would then put them up on the class website for us to look at during class. While they were supposed to be anonymous, when someone answered incorrectly, he would point out the wrong answer (although not mention why it was wrong) and then proceed to laugh at the person who had presented it. It was deliciously hilarious and wrong at the same time.
East Asian History
This is an example of a bad history course. While a lot of the primary sources were extremely interesting, the lectures were always dull, and something about the classroom made every class feel sleepy and aimless. I wrote some mediocre papers and did an awesome presentation on Himeji castle. Besides that, the dull professor, and the interesting historical readings, I didn't get much from this course.
Ancient Philosophy
A visiting professor taunted us about arguments. It was occasionally funny to see watch him refute his students' arguments against Aristotle, but not much else. I sat next to an astoundingly awkward kid (who I suspect has a mild case of Asperger syndrome). He would take issue with the strangest things, and during one particularly awkward class claimed to have escaped from Plato's cave. No one really had much to say to that... He also talked about having dreams about mathematics quite frequently. Anyway, I don't even remember much about the class anymore. This kid was too weird. Oh, and the professor (visiting) had a sun tattoo on his head and an Iron Maiden poster in his office.
Film as Text
I took this "Film as an English course" two years before I'd take the awesome "Film as a philosophy course." This was pretty unremarkable. I saw some awesome films, and learned some handy film terms in the process, but all the discussions felt pointless. Also, I had to write a lot of uninteresting papers. I guess it was worth it for a lot of the awesome films.
Japanese Literature
This course had a lot of potential. The problems with the class were two-fold. First, the professor was new and wasn't sure what she wanted to do with the class, and ended up trying to run it mostly as a discussion. The second was that the students, myself included, had very little exposure to Japanese literature and did not have a frame work from which to judge most of the stuff we read. Hence, the discussions were largely unproductive. "I kinda liked this part." "This part was interesting." That kind of thing. I did get to keep some cool books on Japanese literature though. I'm definitely going to read some of the modern short stories over the Summer. Also, our last reading assignment was some manga. That was kinda cool I thought. I hope they're able to make this course into something better in coming years.
Philosophy & Neuroscience
This suffered from the same problems as the above course, but to an even worse extent. The professor was new, and she looked like she was fresh out of grad school. I've heard, and this is just hearsay, that the philosophy department had been hoping to hire a female professor for some time. I don't want to accuse her of being hired solely for this reason, but it would explain a lot. Again, the students were not familiar with a lot of the subject matter and she insisted on making the class discussion-based. There were more awkward silences in this class than any other class I've taken ever. Yikes.
Intro Psychology
Unremarkable. This course mostly covered stuff I had learned in my high school psychology class. Also, the professors didn't like me because I was late quite often. It was an early morning class, and I, as a sophomore, had a real problem waking up on time. This was my fault, I know, but it really didn't help things. I feel as if this course was merely average, but I performed below-average at it.
Modern Philosophy
This was the first bad philosophy course I took. Actually, I took it the same semester I took Political Philosophy (my first good philosophy course), which was fortunate. Anyway, this professor (nicknamed Suda) was visiting and, while a very nice man, was awful at lecturing and even worse at scheduling. Every class, for at least a month, he said, "Okay, this is the last day we're going to spend on Leibniz." And then he'd just talk about monads. He tried to cover all of Kant in a day. This course became a great embarrassment to the philosophy department. In more than one of my future philosophy classes, a professor would ask a student, "You've taken Modern, haven't you?" to which the student reply, "Yeah, but I had Suda." "Oh," the professor would reply, understandingly.
Holocaust
Even though Calculus B was the most detrimental class I've taken, I think this one was less pleasant to be in. My rational for taking the class was that 1. I liked history, 2. it fit my schedule well, and 3. my friend was taking it. It was taught as an interdisciplinary course, by both a psychology professor and by a religious studies professor. Much wiser from my experiences with Calculus B, I took this course pass/fail, which meant I didn't have to worry about it as much. Occasionally, this course did offer some interesting perspectives on Jewish history, human psychology, and the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda. Ultimately, it didn't have anything meaningful to say, and being constantly instructed to feel sad got old quickly. The discussions were the worst part, where people would talk about how the Holocaust was sad, and people were expected to solemnly agree. And inevitably, someone, imagining themselves quite insightful, would say, "And America is doing the same thing today that Nazi Germany did back then." Ugh. Maybe it was naive of me to expect more from this course. It consistently left me depressed, angry and annoyed. The best part about this course was when my friend and I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to celebrate the end of the class.
Calculus B
I should have dropped this class. But I took it first semester of my freshmen year and didn't know any better, sadly. In high school, I loved my calculus classes, and I took classes on both AB and BC. I thought that the material wouldn't be too bad and the class would be fine. I was quite mistaken, however. College math classes, it turns out, are run entirely different than high school math courses. I had assumed that mistakes on the homework would be corrected by the professor, rather than by anonymous students. Again, this was a morning class which I was often late to, which made matters worse. Contributing to this problem was the fact that I sucked at time management, meaning that many of the homework assignments kept me up all night, The most damning element of this course, however, was the professor. He explained ideas poorly, making concepts I had understood more vague. I think he realized this, and instead relied on examples to do the explaining for him. However, he always chose extremely simple examples, which were no help on the homework/quiz/test. He told me at one point that I needed to try harder if I hoped to pass the class. That was a particularly surreal moment for me, as, for the longest time, I considered myself a good student. The idea that I was in danger of failing a class seemed completely foreign to me. In some ways, that moment was influential in my Kenyon career, as it drove home the idea that I would have to specialize if I hoped to succeed at college. It also made me realize that math, at the college level, was not for me. This annoyed me, partly because I used to enjoy it. I would learn later that it may have been more the fault of the professor than I realized, as many of his students reported similar experiences. In the end, I got a D in the course, which would drag my GPA down for the rest of my college career. I did technically pass, however, and got distribution credit for the course. The professor got tenure this year, which amazes me.
BONUS CLASSES
Ballroom Dance Club
While not technically a club, I definitely learned a great deal in my four years of ballroom dance. I was a treasurer for two of those years, so it was almost like I had some serious work to do. In retrospect, my time in this club has taught me more things than many of my classes have. As much as I'd like to deny it, I'm bound to forget a lot of the ideas and facts I've learned in my classes. Yet I suspect my knowledge of foxtrot, quickstep, rumba, etc. will say with me much longer.
Piano lessons
Again, this doesn't feel like a real class to me, even though I got a grade in it. Regardless, I was very happy to finally get some musical training. I felt like I was definitely lacking in my knowledge of music terms. I definitely wasn't very good at the piano, but college is a situation where you can get away with doing something you're bad at, as long as you improve over time. Like ballroom, I think my rudimentary piano knowledge will stay with me longer than many of my classes.
English Linguistics
This class really didn't feel like a class. Part of that is because I audited it, but it's also because the class was so laid back and unpredictable. The professor, an elderly man, was essentially using our class as an opportunity for reevaluating what he wanted to do with the course. As such, what we did in each class tended to vary greatly, and he wasn't so much concerned with how well I performed or knew the various tasks, but how much I enjoyed them. Traditionally, linguistics and I have not really gotten along. To this course's credit, it did get me enjoying linguistics more than my previous classes had. Unfortunately, the class was so laid back that I never felt like I was accomplishing anything. The class wasn't stressful, but I never felt really eager to go to it either. In spite of this, my only real reason for taking the class was a desire to take a class with my girlfriend before graduating, and, in that regard, I succeeded.
Mind, Perception & Film
This was a phenomenal course, taught my favorite professor. Instead of simply being about philosophy as seen in film, it focused partly on theories of film-making and partly on theories of film-viewing. Some really interesting stuff, and consistently entertaining lectures. My final paper was on video games, which was also cool.
Symbolic Logic
Taught by the same professor as the above course, this was a pretty straight-forward course on symbolic logic. The only reason it's so high on this list is because I had a strong affinity for the material and, again, the professor kept the course consistently entertaining. This was important, considering the class was at 8 in the morning. Oh, and I think I kicked ass on the final.
IPHS (Integrated Program in Humane Studies)
I took this my freshmen year, and it was far and away the best course of the year. It was a year-long, broad, broad overview of Western civilization, discussing history, literature, philosophy and even geography. In general, I don't enjoy the overview classes as much as the in-depth sort. This was an exception, as there were lots of different lectures and I got a chance to familiarize myself with lots of different writers. It had enough variety to it to keep me interested, and provided some valuable experiences. My papers all sucked, though. I got to play croquette at my seminar professor's house at the end of the course, though.
Pragmatism
I took this to fulfill my epistemology requirement for my major, but ended up quite enjoying it. It focused on Peirce, James and Dewey. There were some extremely interesting ideas, many of which will certainly stay with me. Lastly, this was the third class taught by my favorite professor.
Kant
A very good class on some very hard material, taught by my adviser. This, along with Hegel, is the epitome of an in-depth class. Our reading each week was around ten pages, all of which had to be unpacked and explained in great detail over the course of the week. Although we only covered a small amount of material, it was very rewarding. I almost wish the class could have been another semester longer. My one criticism of the class is that, while it left me with an appreciation for Kant, it also left me with the impression that it would be pointless for me to try to read him myself, as I just wouldn't get much out of it.
Hegel
This was very similar to the Kant class, and also taught by my adviser. Small amounts of reading, extremely in-depth. It was also monumentally difficult. I ended up with a C in the class and was happy to have it. Quite likely the hardest course I took. And like the Kant class, it left me with an appreciation for Hegel, but the feeling that reading him outside of a college setting wouldn't be as rewarding.
Galileo to Einstein
This is one of those science courses that's targeted at non-science students. It was taught by a physics professor, who I believe is the only professor I've had with a Wikipedia page. Most of the course was devoted to reading the writings of Galileo and Einstein, both of whom are great writers. My final paper was about ether, which was pretty cool. I wish more science was targeted at humanities students, since much of it has a fascinating history.
Early Modern European History
Ah, history. I was considering being a history major for a while. I definitely enjoy the study of history, but how much I've learned that how much I get out of it is really dependent on the professor. This is the best-case scenario, where the professor is awesome. He lectured a few times in my IPHS course, and I had wanted to take a course with him since my Freshmen year, but only got the chance second semester of my senior year. Lots of great lectures, occasionally interrupted by some less-than-stellar discussions. A thoroughly entertaining course, even if it was far from life-changing. The professor for this course just got tenure, which he definitely deserved.
Asian Art History
This was a neat class. As is to be expected in an art history courses, all the tests were gigantic memorization exercises. That said, the history of Asian art was very interesting and left me with a new kind of appreciation for it. I didn't realize it at the time, but it's really cool that I can now see a random Buddha sculpture, or a hanging scroll, and have it summon up associations with different countries, beliefs, and time periods. The course itself, and its professor, were nothing remarkable, but I do appreciate what it offered.
Intermediate Japanese
I tested into this course my Freshmen year, since I had already taken Japanese in high school. Much of this course was probably easier for me than it should have been, and I ended up with an easy A. Language courses, in my opinion, depend much more on one's classmates and professor than on the subject matter itself. In this regard, this was a very enjoyable course. I made many friends, including my future-roommate. A fun course.
Advanced Japanese / Japanese Language & Culture
These are grouped together since they're (in my mind) two parts of the same course. They featured some pretty advance language stuff and I had to work much harder than I had in Intermediate Japanese. Both featured some intense oral exams which generally lasted about 15 minutes. In Language and Culture, I had to memorize short little essays I had written in Japanese and recite them to my professor. In Advanced, we simply had to translate short essays from Japanese to English. These classes were both smaller than Intermediate, and didn't have as many cool people in them. Despite the hard work, they were rewarding though. Side note: Technically, I've had more classes with this professor than any other. They include Intermdiate Japanese, Advanced, Language & Culture, and Linguistics. He was also my default faculty adviser assigned when I first came to Kenyon. Interesting!
Political Philosophy
This was the first good philosophy course I took. It convinced that being a philosophy major was not the worst decision I could possibly make. Honestly, I didn't have much interest in the topic, but the class made it interesting. I would later ask the professor to be my adviser, so the class benefited me in that regard too. Go Hobbes.
Architecture
Another Art History course. Another dull lecturer with cool slide shows. Again, I enjoyed this course primarily for the history and for the lasting impressions it left on me. The great things about art history courses is that it made me more sensitive to parts of the world I had previously ignored.
Seminar on Contemporary Ethics
Good class, good reading, good material, good discussions. It fulfilled my ethics requirement. Nothing really remarkable about this class, to be honest. Everything was just good. I had a real hard time writing my final paper in this class, for whatever reason, and it didn't turn out very well. On an unrelated note, every time I saw this professor after taking this course, he told me I should come by his office some time so we could talk again. (We had met and talked during the course.) I always said I would and then I never did. To this day, I still feel slightly guilty. He was a nice guy.
Medieval Philosophy
I took this class to fulfill my metaphysics requirement. I ended up enjoying the class much more than I expected, as medieval philosophers haven't generally gotten much credit. The professor was a really nice guy, although he was slightly awkward at times. Still, he was an easy grader. This was the class I was tested on during the third part of my comprehensive exams, so, in a way, this class is responsible for me graduating. I will admit, though, that the final for this class was one of the (physically) most difficult I've ever taken. Most essay finals I've taken have only taken me two hours. This one was three straight hours of writing. My hand was quite sore afterwards.
Japanese Linguistics
Ha ha. Japanese Linguistics. This was a course I kept forgetting I was taking. I took the course with my Junior-year roommate, and it was a lot of fun. There were tests we didn't study for and got A's. I ended up with an A+ in the course, and laughed when I found out. Seriously, easy courses that you can make fun of with friends are some of the best. My favorite part of this course was how the professor "corrected" our homework. Before class, we were asked to e-mail in the answers to our homework. The professor, a polite, middle-aged Japanese man, would then put them up on the class website for us to look at during class. While they were supposed to be anonymous, when someone answered incorrectly, he would point out the wrong answer (although not mention why it was wrong) and then proceed to laugh at the person who had presented it. It was deliciously hilarious and wrong at the same time.
East Asian History
This is an example of a bad history course. While a lot of the primary sources were extremely interesting, the lectures were always dull, and something about the classroom made every class feel sleepy and aimless. I wrote some mediocre papers and did an awesome presentation on Himeji castle. Besides that, the dull professor, and the interesting historical readings, I didn't get much from this course.
Ancient Philosophy
A visiting professor taunted us about arguments. It was occasionally funny to see watch him refute his students' arguments against Aristotle, but not much else. I sat next to an astoundingly awkward kid (who I suspect has a mild case of Asperger syndrome). He would take issue with the strangest things, and during one particularly awkward class claimed to have escaped from Plato's cave. No one really had much to say to that... He also talked about having dreams about mathematics quite frequently. Anyway, I don't even remember much about the class anymore. This kid was too weird. Oh, and the professor (visiting) had a sun tattoo on his head and an Iron Maiden poster in his office.
Film as Text
I took this "Film as an English course" two years before I'd take the awesome "Film as a philosophy course." This was pretty unremarkable. I saw some awesome films, and learned some handy film terms in the process, but all the discussions felt pointless. Also, I had to write a lot of uninteresting papers. I guess it was worth it for a lot of the awesome films.
Japanese Literature
This course had a lot of potential. The problems with the class were two-fold. First, the professor was new and wasn't sure what she wanted to do with the class, and ended up trying to run it mostly as a discussion. The second was that the students, myself included, had very little exposure to Japanese literature and did not have a frame work from which to judge most of the stuff we read. Hence, the discussions were largely unproductive. "I kinda liked this part." "This part was interesting." That kind of thing. I did get to keep some cool books on Japanese literature though. I'm definitely going to read some of the modern short stories over the Summer. Also, our last reading assignment was some manga. That was kinda cool I thought. I hope they're able to make this course into something better in coming years.
Philosophy & Neuroscience
This suffered from the same problems as the above course, but to an even worse extent. The professor was new, and she looked like she was fresh out of grad school. I've heard, and this is just hearsay, that the philosophy department had been hoping to hire a female professor for some time. I don't want to accuse her of being hired solely for this reason, but it would explain a lot. Again, the students were not familiar with a lot of the subject matter and she insisted on making the class discussion-based. There were more awkward silences in this class than any other class I've taken ever. Yikes.
Intro Psychology
Unremarkable. This course mostly covered stuff I had learned in my high school psychology class. Also, the professors didn't like me because I was late quite often. It was an early morning class, and I, as a sophomore, had a real problem waking up on time. This was my fault, I know, but it really didn't help things. I feel as if this course was merely average, but I performed below-average at it.
Modern Philosophy
This was the first bad philosophy course I took. Actually, I took it the same semester I took Political Philosophy (my first good philosophy course), which was fortunate. Anyway, this professor (nicknamed Suda) was visiting and, while a very nice man, was awful at lecturing and even worse at scheduling. Every class, for at least a month, he said, "Okay, this is the last day we're going to spend on Leibniz." And then he'd just talk about monads. He tried to cover all of Kant in a day. This course became a great embarrassment to the philosophy department. In more than one of my future philosophy classes, a professor would ask a student, "You've taken Modern, haven't you?" to which the student reply, "Yeah, but I had Suda." "Oh," the professor would reply, understandingly.
Holocaust
Even though Calculus B was the most detrimental class I've taken, I think this one was less pleasant to be in. My rational for taking the class was that 1. I liked history, 2. it fit my schedule well, and 3. my friend was taking it. It was taught as an interdisciplinary course, by both a psychology professor and by a religious studies professor. Much wiser from my experiences with Calculus B, I took this course pass/fail, which meant I didn't have to worry about it as much. Occasionally, this course did offer some interesting perspectives on Jewish history, human psychology, and the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda. Ultimately, it didn't have anything meaningful to say, and being constantly instructed to feel sad got old quickly. The discussions were the worst part, where people would talk about how the Holocaust was sad, and people were expected to solemnly agree. And inevitably, someone, imagining themselves quite insightful, would say, "And America is doing the same thing today that Nazi Germany did back then." Ugh. Maybe it was naive of me to expect more from this course. It consistently left me depressed, angry and annoyed. The best part about this course was when my friend and I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to celebrate the end of the class.
Calculus B
I should have dropped this class. But I took it first semester of my freshmen year and didn't know any better, sadly. In high school, I loved my calculus classes, and I took classes on both AB and BC. I thought that the material wouldn't be too bad and the class would be fine. I was quite mistaken, however. College math classes, it turns out, are run entirely different than high school math courses. I had assumed that mistakes on the homework would be corrected by the professor, rather than by anonymous students. Again, this was a morning class which I was often late to, which made matters worse. Contributing to this problem was the fact that I sucked at time management, meaning that many of the homework assignments kept me up all night, The most damning element of this course, however, was the professor. He explained ideas poorly, making concepts I had understood more vague. I think he realized this, and instead relied on examples to do the explaining for him. However, he always chose extremely simple examples, which were no help on the homework/quiz/test. He told me at one point that I needed to try harder if I hoped to pass the class. That was a particularly surreal moment for me, as, for the longest time, I considered myself a good student. The idea that I was in danger of failing a class seemed completely foreign to me. In some ways, that moment was influential in my Kenyon career, as it drove home the idea that I would have to specialize if I hoped to succeed at college. It also made me realize that math, at the college level, was not for me. This annoyed me, partly because I used to enjoy it. I would learn later that it may have been more the fault of the professor than I realized, as many of his students reported similar experiences. In the end, I got a D in the course, which would drag my GPA down for the rest of my college career. I did technically pass, however, and got distribution credit for the course. The professor got tenure this year, which amazes me.
BONUS CLASSES
Ballroom Dance Club
While not technically a club, I definitely learned a great deal in my four years of ballroom dance. I was a treasurer for two of those years, so it was almost like I had some serious work to do. In retrospect, my time in this club has taught me more things than many of my classes have. As much as I'd like to deny it, I'm bound to forget a lot of the ideas and facts I've learned in my classes. Yet I suspect my knowledge of foxtrot, quickstep, rumba, etc. will say with me much longer.
Piano lessons
Again, this doesn't feel like a real class to me, even though I got a grade in it. Regardless, I was very happy to finally get some musical training. I felt like I was definitely lacking in my knowledge of music terms. I definitely wasn't very good at the piano, but college is a situation where you can get away with doing something you're bad at, as long as you improve over time. Like ballroom, I think my rudimentary piano knowledge will stay with me longer than many of my classes.
English Linguistics
This class really didn't feel like a class. Part of that is because I audited it, but it's also because the class was so laid back and unpredictable. The professor, an elderly man, was essentially using our class as an opportunity for reevaluating what he wanted to do with the course. As such, what we did in each class tended to vary greatly, and he wasn't so much concerned with how well I performed or knew the various tasks, but how much I enjoyed them. Traditionally, linguistics and I have not really gotten along. To this course's credit, it did get me enjoying linguistics more than my previous classes had. Unfortunately, the class was so laid back that I never felt like I was accomplishing anything. The class wasn't stressful, but I never felt really eager to go to it either. In spite of this, my only real reason for taking the class was a desire to take a class with my girlfriend before graduating, and, in that regard, I succeeded.