Month: December 2016

Upon entering college I didn’t know what kind of academic I would become. Would I be the “C’s get degrees” type, or the “Nothing less than a 4.0 will do” type? But honestly I felt it was going to be the former. But I learned so much. I gained knowledge about rhetoric, ethos, pathos, logos, synthesizing pieces, and argument papers. I gained knowledge on racial issues in America, what it means to protest, and the dangers the Syrian people are in. Most importantly though, I gained knowledge about myself. Who I am, what I wish to accomplish, and what I am capable of. The quest of conquering my first semester, like any great quest, ultimately led to self-knowledge.

This class challenged me in ways I have never been challenged before. I was pushed to break boundaries and write styles that I have never even heard of. When we got the first assignment my thought was “you’ve got to be kidding me,” I had never done a synthesis piece before. And oh, how I hated doing those kernel essays. But after reflecting on the unit, I wrote “when it came time to write the final paper, it became so clear why we did all the kernel essays.” This taught me that just like in basketball where you have to practice all summer even though your season doesn’t start until November, as an academic striving for excellence, you have to do the preseason conditioning so that during the first game (paper) you aren’t gasping for breath.

This class opened my mind in ways it had never been opened before. As a moderate republican, reading articles from the New York Times is not something I would consider my cup of tea. And when we looked at the students of Ole Miss protesting against a comment on Facebook I wrote ”America needs to grow up…why don’t we look up racist comments on social media and hold a protest against every single person, black or white, who has ever said anything racist?” And to a certain extent, I still believe in what I wrote, but Mrs. Buckley left a comment on this post, she said “do you think bringing attention to it has taught university students a lesson they wouldn’t have learned without this event?” Well I never looked at it that way. Students became more aware of the fact that the stuff they say on social media has an effect on the world. The stuff we say can’t and won’t disappear. They stuff we say can and will be seen by anyone who wants to see it. And if a protest is what kids needs to realize that, so be it.

But most importantly, this class, along with the others taken during the semester, gave me the self knowledge that I am the “Nothing less than a 4.0 will do” type. I learned that as a student I don’t want to accept anything less than perfection, but as a realist I also learned that having some shitty first drafts is okay. This semester included stupid classes (**cough** EDHE **cough**), even stupider teachers (**cough EDHE teacher **cough**), and the loss of one of my best friends who happened to be related to me, and I would say those are all pretty shitty first drafts of college, but I can see the potential the next four years have, or maybe even five because “there are worse places [I] could be than the University of Mississippi for [an extra] year. Like jail. Or worse- Starkville.”