| | The beginning of the new semester has meant that life recently has been a little bit hectic. Well, very hectic. Coming back to Smith for Spring semester is always an adventure since I tend to end up back on campus only a day or two before classes start. This means a whole lot of running around buying books, unpacking, shopping for all the toiletries I left at home, and, of course, rearranging my schedule about a hundred times. Well that's what it feels like anyway. I always leave Smith thinking I have an amazing schedule all lined up. Then over break I read an interesting article or meet someone in a fascinating field and suddenly I want to change all my classes. Take last semester for example. I left for summer break intent on continuing my Italian studies and taking an art history course and ended up taking two religion classes instead. Thank goodness Smith has shopping period, which is basically two weeks at the beginning of the semester when you can go to as many classes as you want to see what they're going to be like, how many people will be in the class, and whether you like the professor. Some people, like me, use this time to switch half their classes to new ones. One friend of mine went to twenty different classes the first week of this semester, including three different drawing 1 classes, so she could pick which ones she liked best. So after shopping period I ended up with a pretty fantastic schedule this semester. I'm taking two government courses (Globalization and Gender with Olivia Newman and American Constitutional Law with Alice Hearst), a religion course (The Modern Jewish Experience with Lois Dubin), and an art history course (The History of Photography with Linda Kim).
Now we're halfway through the semester and I still love all my classes. I can't even pick a favorite. Globalization and Gender brings up such interesting topics - migrant workers, sex worker, genital mutilation, AIDS, etc. Constitutional Law involves moot trials in which we get to make decisions on cases that could be Supreme Court cases; last week we argued a case involving the names, photos, and addresses of abortion providers being published on fliers by pro-life activists. Then the History of Photography looks at the uses of photography in every sense, from police mug shots and images of algae in textbooks to photojournalism and photography as an art form. And then there's Judaic Studies, which looks at the evolution of Judaism from the mid 15th century into the present. To make my schedule even better, I have no classes on Monday mornings and I'm done on Fridays by 10:30, making my weekend last from Friday morning to Monday afternoon. So far, I'm enjoying it immensely. |
