(Disclaimer: This is out of the ordinary for a class schedule. Really. I promise.)
9am-10am: Second Year Japanese
Japanese is hands down the hardest class I've taken at Beloit thus far. And now that I think about it, it's probably the hardest subject I've taken... ever. When you do poorly, you feel miserable, but when you do well, you feel like you're on top of the world. Being successful in any other class doesn't feel nearly as good as being successful in Japanese. The class atmosphere is often light-hearted (which I like), but at the same time, you have to keep on your toes. We teach each other different tricks to help us remember all the kanji, have grammar and vocabulary drills, translate text, have daily quizzes, and we bow at the start and end of each class (my favorite part). There's definitely no staring off into space in this class! I took Spanish in middle school and high school and I often felt like I was being left behind. When I didn't understand something, I just had to deal. In Japanese class, our sensei honestly wants everyone to succeed, so drop-in tutoring sessions are provided twice a week, a conversation practice session is held once a week, and there's a Japanese language table at DK's (a smaller cafeteria in Pearson's) five days a week where we can practice our conversation skills further. But at the end of the day, it's up to the student to study and do all the homework. Japanese is one of those classes that you can succeed in, but you have to be willing to work hard.
10am-12pm: Japanese Ghosts and Monsters
This course focuses on the supernatural within Japanese culture and we look at a wide range of media featuring them. (Books, movies, anime, plays, short stories, oral history, woodblock prints, handscrolls, poems... You name it.) It also functions as a 'history of' in that the class is framed in a chronological fashion, so we can see for ourselves how this or that developed over time or where this or that idea came from. (For example, My Neighbor Totoro, which is a modern anime movie, has a lot of grounding in Shinto.) The class is fairly big for a Beloit College class - I would say there are 20 to 25 students enrolled in Ghosts and Monsters. The style in which the class is taught is very much discussion and there have been some really fascinating conversations so far. There is quite a bit of reading assigned for this class, and we almost always have a weekly movie to watch outside of class. (But it's hard to complain when you're reading fairy tales and watching My Neighbor Totoro!) There's also a number of writing assignments, but that goes without saying since pretty much every Beloit College class has a writing aspect to it. We'll also be asked to come up with our own ghost or monster of our own design (a project I'm really looking forward to).
12pm-1:30pm: British Literary Traditions
British Literary Traditions (or Brit Lit) is an English class that I'm fairly sure every English major is required to take (ie it's required whether you're majoring in Literary Studies or Creative Writing). The particular section I'm in is a lecture-style class, which is a little out-of-the-ordinary for an English class at Beloit, but my professor's lectures are fun and enlightening, so I find myself really enjoying the class. (When it's nice out, we almost always have class outside in the poetry garden.) There's a lot of reading in Brit Lit (some of our texts: Pride and Prejudice, Troilus and Criseyde, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, etc.), but I can honestly say that each book we've been asked to read has been interesting (and if it's not interesting when you read it on your own, my professor makes it interesting).
1:30pm-2pm: Lunch!
It's off to the Java Joint I go to get re-energized. (Their hot chocolate is especially awesome. I especially like it with whip cream and cinnamon on top. Best combination ever or best combination ever?)
2pm-4pm: Intro to Journalism
Right now in Journalism we're looking at the theories, history, and the hows behind Journalism itself. The class is a lot of discussion with a little lecture thrown in here and there for good measure. Later in the semester we're going to have to write a variety of articles (a feature story, a sports story, an op ed piece, etc.), but right now we're just focusing on examining and critiquing various forms of media, which I think is a very important skill to have. Not just as a journalist, but as a news consumer. The class size in my journalism class is more typical Beloit: about 15 students or so.
7pm-9pm: Intro to Astronomy
I've really missed having a science class (the last science class I'd taken prior to astronomy was AP Bio... in my junior year of high school), so astronomy has been helpful in shaking the rust off my science mind-set. (And it truly is a mind-set.) One of the reasons I chose Beloit was because the students are required to take classes outside of their general focus area. Clearly, I'm not planning on majoring in science, but it's nice to be able to dip my toes into something different now and again when conjugating Japanese verbs and analyzing Chaucer get to be too much for me. Intro to Astronomy is a really nice course in that it does what it's supposed to do: introduce you to Astronomy (who's really not all that bad once you get to know him, though he does have a tendency to chew with his mouth open). Intro to Astronomy is mostly lecture, but we also get to do hands on things like lie on the roof of the swanky, new science center and find constellations (something I could never do before this class). The professor also asks us what it is we'd like to learn about each week. I've never before been in a class where the teacher asks the students what it is they'd like to learn.
10:30pm: SLEEP!
Ha ha. I know. I'm a total loser for going to bed at 10:30pm, but after a day like this, you'd want to crawl into bed a little earlier than normal too.
(And again, don't worry. Schedules aren't usually this completely insane and in fact, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I have only one hour of class, so it really does work out in the end. And if you've made it through this whole elephantine post, you deserve a cookie.)
10am-12pm: Japanese Ghosts and MonstersThis course focuses on the supernatural within Japanese culture and we look at a wide range of media featuring them. (Books, movies, anime, plays, short stories, oral history, woodblock prints, handscrolls, poems... You name it.) It also functions as a 'history of' in that the class is framed in a chronological fashion, so we can see for ourselves how this or that developed over time or where this or that idea came from. (For example, My Neighbor Totoro, which is a modern anime movie, has a lot of grounding in Shinto.) The class is fairly big for a Beloit College class - I would say there are 20 to 25 students enrolled in Ghosts and Monsters. The style in which the class is taught is very much discussion and there have been some really fascinating conversations so far. There is quite a bit of reading assigned for this class, and we almost always have a weekly movie to watch outside of class. (But it's hard to complain when you're reading fairy tales and watching My Neighbor Totoro!) There's also a number of writing assignments, but that goes without saying since pretty much every Beloit College class has a writing aspect to it. We'll also be asked to come up with our own ghost or monster of our own design (a project I'm really looking forward to).
12pm-1:30pm: British Literary Traditions
British Literary Traditions (or Brit Lit) is an English class that I'm fairly sure every English major is required to take (ie it's required whether you're majoring in Literary Studies or Creative Writing). The particular section I'm in is a lecture-style class, which is a little out-of-the-ordinary for an English class at Beloit, but my professor's lectures are fun and enlightening, so I find myself really enjoying the class. (When it's nice out, we almost always have class outside in the poetry garden.) There's a lot of reading in Brit Lit (some of our texts: Pride and Prejudice, Troilus and Criseyde, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, etc.), but I can honestly say that each book we've been asked to read has been interesting (and if it's not interesting when you read it on your own, my professor makes it interesting).
1:30pm-2pm: Lunch!
It's off to the Java Joint I go to get re-energized. (Their hot chocolate is especially awesome. I especially like it with whip cream and cinnamon on top. Best combination ever or best combination ever?)
2pm-4pm: Intro to JournalismRight now in Journalism we're looking at the theories, history, and the hows behind Journalism itself. The class is a lot of discussion with a little lecture thrown in here and there for good measure. Later in the semester we're going to have to write a variety of articles (a feature story, a sports story, an op ed piece, etc.), but right now we're just focusing on examining and critiquing various forms of media, which I think is a very important skill to have. Not just as a journalist, but as a news consumer. The class size in my journalism class is more typical Beloit: about 15 students or so.
7pm-9pm: Intro to Astronomy
I've really missed having a science class (the last science class I'd taken prior to astronomy was AP Bio... in my junior year of high school), so astronomy has been helpful in shaking the rust off my science mind-set. (And it truly is a mind-set.) One of the reasons I chose Beloit was because the students are required to take classes outside of their general focus area. Clearly, I'm not planning on majoring in science, but it's nice to be able to dip my toes into something different now and again when conjugating Japanese verbs and analyzing Chaucer get to be too much for me. Intro to Astronomy is a really nice course in that it does what it's supposed to do: introduce you to Astronomy (who's really not all that bad once you get to know him, though he does have a tendency to chew with his mouth open). Intro to Astronomy is mostly lecture, but we also get to do hands on things like lie on the roof of the swanky, new science center and find constellations (something I could never do before this class). The professor also asks us what it is we'd like to learn about each week. I've never before been in a class where the teacher asks the students what it is they'd like to learn.
10:30pm: SLEEP!
Ha ha. I know. I'm a total loser for going to bed at 10:30pm, but after a day like this, you'd want to crawl into bed a little earlier than normal too.
(And again, don't worry. Schedules aren't usually this completely insane and in fact, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I have only one hour of class, so it really does work out in the end. And if you've made it through this whole elephantine post, you deserve a cookie.)
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