I took this political science class to fulfill Goal 8. To be honest, I am not a history person. I would prefer to take a math class instead. But alas, I had to be there so I decided to make the most of it to try to learn as much as I could. This class was exactly what I pictured college to be like. The professor lectured for the entire class, we had three exams, and a semester paper.
The exams in this class were a combination of short essays that we wrote during the test period. We wrote the essays in Bluebooks, which were new to me at the time but apparently are very popular among college classes. The idea was that we would study all the material learned in class and be prepared to write essays on the topics of the professor’s choice. For example, the professor gave us four choices and we had to write three of the essays. Below, I have attached one of those essays. The prompt was to describe Civil Rights Movement, including amendments and cases that went along with it. (Please ignore my handwriting, we had limited time to write all of the essays.)
While I enjoyed the freedom of not having homework every night, it was hard because that meant there were not many grades to go in the grade book. What it also meant was that I had to study extra hard because there was no room to mess up. One bad exam would reflect poorly on my grade. I was terrified that I was not going to pass the class, so I studied for hours for each test. I quickly learned the idea that “you get what you put in.” The more you study, the better the grades. The more you slack, the worse your grades are. In the end, I received an A in the class. I’m proud of my grade because I know how hard I worked to earn that grade.