The Rundown of my Fall Semester Classes (Reviews)

Hello! I hope all of you had a wonderful break and holiday season! I enjoyed mine very much; I spent my time with my family and friends and worked at my old summer job to keep busy. I was a tad disappointed though that during the few weeks that I was home in Wisconsin, there were no snow storms. However, the day that my sister and I flew to Florida for the last 5 days of break, there was a snowstorm at home which resulted in at least 4 inches. And even right this very minute, there’s a snowstorm at my house. But, of course, not while I was home. Oh well.

Anyway, I meant to post this last week, but I unfortunately did not have internet access while I was in Florida. Overall, last semester’s classes went very well (not to brag, but I was extremely excited to learn that I earned a 4.0!) and I ended up liking every single class I took. Of course, some classes were more engaging than others, but there wasn’t one class that I dreaded going to every week, which was a definite plus.

Executive Branch Politics: This class was always very interesting and relevant since we constantly were discussing events and policies that are either affecting the country today or a major part of its history. It was extremely discussion based and was never just a lecture class. I also loved the professor, but unfortunately he is not teaching this semester.

Social Research Methods: This focused on research and experimental designs in the social sciences. Topics such as ethical issues and methods of sampling populations were covered along with many other research concerns. As predicted at the beginning of the semester, this was the most boring out of my classes, but that’s not saying much because it wasn’t too boring. The examples of research topics that have been studied in the past were fascinating (we looked into the Stanley Milgram pain experiment and the Philip Zimbardo prison experiment as they relate to ethical concerns).

Theories of Personality: This class will be particularly memorable since my professor was constantly using examples of personalities, such as Mr. T, and other contemporary celebrities. We covered 7 different personality theorists, for instance Adler, Freud, Jung, and Allport, and their corresponding theories on personality (which includes what they believe motivates people and how it affects their behaviors and personality).

Calligraphy: I was quite shocked at my progress in this class. I started off creating characters that were quite awful and very clearly done by someone who had never done it before, and by the end, while I am obviously not a pro at it, I got a great deal better. Even though this class was 2.5 hours long, it was quite interesting to learn about how calligraphy is not just considered a form of writing in Asia, but an art form. Here is a picture of my work on the first day of class and of my final exam project:

first day of class

my final exam project

Social Psychology: As I predicted in an earlier post, this was my favorite class of the semester, despite the fact that I missed this class the most due to volleyball conflicts (was a Wednesday and Friday class and we traveled a great deal). There were some topics that overlapped with my other psychology class, but thankfully not too much, so it wasn’t redundant. Probably my favorite part of this class was writing a paper (yes, I enjoyed writing a paper) about all of the different social psychological aspects present in the movie Shrek (2001), such as conformity, prejudice, and confirmation bias.

Once I have my classes finalized for this new semester, I’ll let you know what I’m taking!

Feel free to email me with any questions! cbgraf@gwmail.gwu.edu