Entry #20: Final Impressions 7/16/2011

Knowing these things, my first thoughts about this class were why do I have to take a class that does not have anything to do with my major and that has no interest to me? I went into this class already having my presumptions about it. I took no particular interest in the subject. I thought that 10 weeks of this class would be a little too much when I found out I had to write papers. This class definitely had a bad rep from the beginning, hearing from students and my teammates that it was a waste of time and simply why do we have to take this class. This was a summer class that I thought was going to be hell, taking up a lot of my time and stressing me out, but my have the tables turned. Colloquium turned out not to be such a big deal after all even though each week the work started to get very repetitive and arduous at others. I found the content of the class to be helpful and intriguing. Going into it I don't think I would have recommend this class to anyone, however not only do I recommend this class, I also recommend professor Hoekenga because she took this class and made it work. Professor Hoekenga was a good teacher and made the experience well worth it and the content seem bearable. Overall though it was not bad at all, a lot of work though and my overall impression of being in Colloquium was completely different than I had initially anticipated. I learned a lot, more so than I could have, in my Environmental Science class. I found that our online discussions were more helpful to me, because I got to actually see other student’s ideas and opinions on the topics that we discussed. I much rather have a discussion, than learn from a text book or listen to professors’ lectures, “with the online environment, I interact without having to feel that all eyes are on me” and being a “visual and kinesthetic learner”, I much prefer to go on field trips. Overall, I enjoyed the discussions we had together and I am happy to have such knowledgeable, interesting and reflective classmates to share the experience with.