I have recently come to several realizations, most of which are quite startling. First of all, we only have twelve days of class left, three of which I will likely be traveling across the country to run. In that time span I have a ridiculously long and frightening list of things I have to do. One of them is figure out my classes for next semester. Until now I have pretty much known what I was going to take and scheduling was just a matter of fitting things together. However, next year I have to take biochem, p-chem, and physics and the rest is a bit up in the air. I think what I have been thinking about the most is how I am going to fill out my social science and humanities credits. These are especially intriguing because I have not had a lot of time to explore other areas besides my major.
There are so many choices, so many things that I want to learn and pursue but there is simply not enough time. I would love to be fluent in a variety of discourses- not necessarily languages but I want to understand communities and spheres within the University. I wish that time and homework were not limiting factors in the four valuable years we have here. I am intrigued by science classes but sometimes I feel like they are just throwing information at you that could just as easily be learned independently. I want to find classes that challenge me in more ways than memorization. However, this is extremely difficult to accomplish by just looking at a course catalog. The more I have thought about this university wide blog system, the more excited I get about it. Several times when I have been class searching, I wished that I had a type of reference like that to really see into professors and classes. However, this is not yet a reality so I am restricted to word of mouth and course descriptions. But I will eventually decide and then inevitably change my mind the first week or two into the semester. Because that seems to be how I operate.
Another possibly scary realization is that my time here is nearly halfway gone. I can't believe how fast the last two years went. When I am looking at my requirements for my major, I am shocked at how many grades fill my transcript. In some ways, my time here has been all that I have imagined and more. However, I am always searching for that extra dimension to my academic experience. A dimension beyond sitting in a packed Chem 1800 furiously scribbling notes of aldols and hemiacetals. A dimension beyond shallow group discussions that nobody really wants to have. I am still looking, and I am hoping that the best is yet to come and my searching will yield discovery.
This is somewhat irrelevant and a bit of a tangent but I feel that it belongs in this blog if it belongs anywhere. First of all, I love being a member of the University of Michigan cross country and track teams. There is nothing quite like wearing the block M across the country and still hearing cheers of "Go Blue!" Being a part of the team has enhanced my college experience but sometimes I feel like it sacrifices some of my academic potential. I am constrained by practice time and traveling and a conservative course-load is somewhat necessary to retain sanity. I know I could take more classes and spend more time learning if I didn't run. Sometimes I think about this and it bothers me slightly, but I realize that being a part of this kind of team is a very unique opportunity. It has allowed me to understand a discourse of a very different type, although not necessarily academic, it is valuable nevertheless. Ultimately, maybe classes and homework are not the only way to understand discourses and other communities. I think the most important part is to look for opportunities everywhere- in classes, dorms, teams, clubs- to expand your perspective and learn something. As for my classes, I am going to look for something that challenges me to expand my current range of classes. This is a scary concept but exciting as well. And as for my time being almost halfway done, I am going to try to think of it as more than half left. Still time to find what I am looking for and more. And of course, run fast in the process.
Go Blue!
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