The Final One!

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Note: I will put the movie worksheet here on Friday, after we have finished watching Othello in class.
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This is my final blog for this class. It is a bittersweet moment. My reflection of this class is one of similar sentiments, bittersweet. I am a Computer Science major, so taking a 400 level English class was a decision that set out from the beginning to challenge me, and in fact my friends and family laughed at me. Why would I put myself through that if I didn't have too. I do a slight bias, because my girlfriend is also taking the class, but that aside, I have a personal goal of being a renaissance man. I think a good college education should be fairly liberal, and provide a lot more than just the technical nuts and bolts you need for your career. I hate people who cover themselves with science, but have no idea about philosophy. They are ignorant people. I want my engineers to be political, well read, people. You may have the equations and techniques to understand the workings of an atom, but if you do not have a well developed sense of historical right and wrong, you will end up building an atomic bomb when you meant to solve the world energy crisis, and you won't understand the difference. Even if you do purposely build that bomb, or something analogous, you should at least have a good enough philosophical background to reflect on it, and good enough communication skills to reflect your ideas in the context of the world in which you live. I believe philosophy is as important as science. Which is why I took this class. Shakespeare has had a immeasurable effect on modern society, this is something that is worth understanding because of that alone.

As far as the technical aspects of this class go, there were a lot of good things. This blog in itself is a brilliant idea that shows how forward thinking Professor McCall is. It is a brilliant way to bring the concept of journal writing into a modern context, and it saves trees! The concept of a blog also makes the journal writing seem a bit more hip and modern, which makes them more accessible to motivate the lazier students :-P.

The idea of graphic novels, and the "low brow" approach to Shakespeare is also brilliant. I love how it brings the plays into different contexts, and really shows the power of interpretation. Dr. McCall has stated that you do not need to ever read Shakespeare, and you will be just fine in your life. I agree with this, but the deeper understanding of Shakespeare really gives a valuable understanding to how society interprets things, and what things are worth interpreting, which I think makes me a better person. It may not have been necessary, but it was worth it, albeit challenging for me at times.

I always try to make sure I am a decent writer, and I hope that you can at least say that I have that going for myself, but I have never had to write papers of this magnitude before, or this frequency, so it was definitely a challenge for me. It was worth it though; I did enjoy the challenge, and I think it made me a better writer. I would like to make two small critique's about the amount of work though. These are just my opinion, and feel free to ignore me, or flog me :-P. The first is the large amount of blog posts, and their regularity, even in the face of approaching large papers due. A blog post and a paper due on the same day is brutal. The second critique is the paper lengths. We started with a five page paper, then went to a six page paper, then jumped all the way to ten pages. That is a huge jump, especially during the compressed schedule of a five week summer session. The average of all those essays comes out to be seven pages per paper on average, but the unequal distribution, makes it seem very intimidating. Admittedly the last paper was ultimately creative, so that does make up for the length increase, but it was still scary.

Overall, I enjoyed the class thoroughly, and I think it was a worthwhile endeavor. I only regret that we didn't get to play Dungeons and Dragons :-P.

Thank you,
Ray Imber