This semester I am taking a class in the political science department. It's not really a class on political science - it's a qualitative research class that I need to take this semester, and political science is the only place it is being offered outside the school of education this semester, and the School of Education course interferes with my teaching assistant job. But even though the class is on research, and even though there are other non-political science students in the class (including one other school of education student), it is still housed within the political science department, which means that the focus of our hands-on work is going to be political science related, and not education related. We will be getting experience collecting and analyzing data from interviews and field observations and videos and documents, all of which will be done in the context of the 2008 presidential primaries.
At first I was a little intimidated by this, because it is far outside my field of expertise. But then I became excited. After all, I spend a lot of time with education and it will be nice to have an excuse to get away from it and study something else. And I'm actually very interested in the presidential primaries. I've been paying more attention to politics than I have ever done in my life, and have been trying to be more aware of what's going on in my country, my state, and my own community. Of course, the research we'll be doing is not about the candidates or the issues - we're researching details about the process and everyday people's involvement in the process. But it still gives me a chance to get a little more deeply into political events than I normally do. Next week, in fact, I will most likely be attending a talk by John McCain over in Ypsilanti (I'm just waiting for confirmation that I have a ticket), and I'm really excited about that. I'm also looking forward to casting my vote in the Michigan primaries that same day - I've looked up my polling place, taken a look at the sample ballot, learned the basics about the primary process (which I actually didn't understand until recently) - the differences between open and closed primaries, caucuses and primaries, how delegates are chosen, what happens at the conventions. I've even managed to form some opinions about particular candidates, at least enough that I can hold reasonably intelligent conversations with other people who are somewhat informed.
It's also sort of nice to get outside the school of education in a more literal sense. Up to this point I have been woefully uninformed about the rest of campus. I know where all the professional schools are (medical, dental, social work, business, and so on). But when it comes to all the literature, science, and arts (LSA) buildings, I'm pretty clueless. East Hall is where mathematics is. That's all I know. After six years at BYU, I knew every building name and acronym and nickname there was, but when you're only required to live in a single building, you have no real reason to learn. So this week I learned that HH is Haven Hall and is where the political science department is located, and that DENN is Dennyson, and that is where physics is, and where the math class I am a teaching assistant for is located. And I have spent very little time in the School of Education. I have been doing my studying in the Institute building and the graduate library and the public library. I just needed a change of scenery.
Here's to expanding horizons :).
1 comment:
Two of my favorite college classes were my freshman year. I had to take two semesters of government (one federal and one state), and I got two very different professors. One was about as far left-leaning as you could imagine, while the other leaned quite a ways to the right.
I had so much fun in those classes, and I think I learned more there than I did in many other classes. With the liberal professor, I insisted on arguing everything from a conservative viewpoint, while with the conservative professor I came across as 100% liberal.
That forced me to examine all of the readings and lessons from both perspectives, and I had to really understand both sides in order to pull it off. I think I studied harder there than I did in most of my other classes. Somehow, I managed to get an A in both classes, despite my constant arguments with the professors.
Of course, you don't usually expect an engineering student to enjoy political debates that much.
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