My Freshman Year✨
Finally!!!
I have done with my final exam and all of the essay assignments, and now, I am ready to go back to Japan~~~~🇯🇵
Although there are many things I want to say about my Freshman year, I would try to write concisely by picking various memories. I might post other blogs by sorting categories like academic growth, cultural experience, etc.
For this post, I will focus on the reflection of the courses that I took this semester.
To people who don't know me
I have been writing my blog in Japanese to tell my family and friends that I am still alive in college in the U.S. because I am not good at texting a message. I just started blogging in Enlgish because I thought it would be good practice to reach being able to speak Japanese and English at the same level.
FUN FACT
- I' m from a western part of Japan (I grew up in Nara and went to junior and senior high school in Kyoto) which is far from Tokyo
- I'm interested in how human minds work (especially, after we face traumatizing experience)
- like eye shopping alone, dance, play the piano
REL130: Introductions of Religions
If you have been reading my blog, you already know why I decided to take this class. I thought studying psychology was not enough to understand how the mind works. We are influenced by environment, culture, history, education, and religion. Those humanistic study fields are fundamentally important. Another reason was that one of my close friends I met @DePauw believes in particular religions like Hinduism or Christianity. Although I forgot to mention in my former post, one more reason is I usually take at least one class that I never expected to learn before each semester. I found this idea on a website written by Japanese college students. Before coming to DePauw, since I didn't know students who went to liberal arts colleges in the U.S. from my prefecture, I always looked for information on the internet. Some articles written by alumni or current students in overseas universities helped me imagine how I choose courses. One of the interesting in liberal arts college is knowing new perspectives and eventually finding the connection with other views which I already knew by chance.
The professor for this class was good with engaging students and empowering us to seek knowledge not only about religion itself but potentially more than that because religions are related to politics, history, culture, etc. I'm excited to do an independent class with him next semester! The topic would be either "Cognitive Science for Religions" or "African American Religions." I cannot decide right now, so if you have a recommendation, comment, or question for this, please let me know!!!!
CSC121: Introduction to Computer Science
The best thing in this class was an atmosphere that allowed me to ask questions without hesitating. I think learning Java is similar to how we solve problems in mathematics or learn new foreign languages. This course reminds me of when I suffered from some problems in math and when I learned German in high school. I always met particular points when it took me time to understand. This phase is not avoidable because this process makes me gain new skills. One of the reasons why people quit studying new things might be they hesitate to ask questions. In this computer science class, no one sees each other as either smart students or not. The students who joined the class were diverse, so we already knew that our high school education was totally different. That might be why everyone was supported when someone was confused about Java coding.
PSY232: Abnormal Psychology
This class was about how people's mental conditions change and how psychiatrists diagnose them with criteria. I enjoyed the essay assignment for the course. One was trying to interpret the possible mental illness of Adolf Hitler with an article about Hitler's life. In the reading for this class, I found new things about myself when I read articles focusing on the history of either country or a particular person. I tend to stop turning the pages at the point when I start imagining how the people in the article feel at that time. Another assignment was to diagnose the type of personality disorder of Aileen Wuornos, the protagonist of the movie "Monster." I like that the professor for this class gives assignments as a practice of what we learned in the class.
This class made me more curious about the perspective some scholars argued for Westerlized psychiatry. During the Spring break, one of the members of Ryugaku Fellowship, the educational non-profit organization in which I am involved, recommended the book called "Crazy Like Us" written by Ethan Watters. I was surprised that the factors of anorexia in Hong Kong and in the U.S. are different because of different cultural environments. I wonder if several scholars in multiple study fields like anthropology, religious studies, and public health corporate re-create DSM-5, the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, how it looks like.
PACS100: Introduction of Peace and Conflict Studies
I suppose to take a chemistry course, but I realized chemistry is not my favorite, so I switched to this class after my friend recommended it. The professor for this class has macro perspectives. Therefore, at the beginning of the semester, I struggled with switching my thought for PACS class after taking religious studies. However, this experience showed me that the perspective used to study religious studies and PACS are different. What I enjoyed in the class was making the diagram based on the theory for PACS. Staring at those diagrams helped to make an argument for my essay.
The most challenging thing in the class was making an argument. I was affected by the education system in Japan. You might know that Japanese education focuses on lectures, not discussions. Some people criticize that this system makes teenagers disable to have an opinion or an argument. Although it might be true, thanks to the system, I improved myself as a deep listener of opinions others argue and accept all of them. Through the class, I realized that I love collecting each student's opinion and storing those ideas in my brain. However, it is difficult to make an argument because I cannot put those opinions in a specific order for making my argument. Especially, since I study with students from diverse backgrounds. I tend to really care about if my argument harms others because of my lack of imagination. I guess this concern will prolonge, but I will gradually figure it out.
I think it is pretty much how I enjoyed the class for this semester. On a different note, I think the activity I enjoyed the most on campus this year was dancing.
We did an activity, writing a message to a randomly assigned teammate. I received the plate with a message. I have never met friends who use "multitalented" to express my nature. Including the person who gave it to me, I was glad to see everyone on campus who always shows me various aspects of me that I never realized, and thank you for always making my dairy life more fun with your senses of humor 🫶
P.S.
I heard from some of my friends @DePauw who have been reading my blog by using a translator. Since I usually use the dialect(Kansai-ben), I guess what you read from the translator made you confused sometimes, but I really appreciate that you read my blog, and hopefully, the English ver of my blog is more understandable for you!!