Like Jillian, my reflection was based on working on thinking and rethinking my papers. It was difficult for me in the beginning of the semester to think beyond what I already deemed true. Thinking beyond or rethinking my papers got easier as the semester progressed due to my classmates. Hearing all their stories, sharing their thoughts, and opening up to the class, helped me with rethinking because I had more ideas that I never considered. The progress of my work is mainly credited to our class and the conversations we hold. These conversations really opened new windows into thinking about education and not only the academic aspect of it.

To summarize my reflection, our ESEM has taught me a lot about how to mature into a good writer so that I am more confident in my writing and more comfortable in doing so. It also taught me to not only to be actively aware of how education affects people, but the struggles that education currently faces. I feel that my classmates and I both believe this is the main purpose for our ESEM, and that for the most part, the class has been successful in pushing our thoughts and perceptions about education. Moreover, we use the class as a place to test our ideas which we then open for discussion. On the other hand, I also pointed out some things that could be added to the class, such as looking at education from a more global stand point, and trying to make the class more concrete by trying to come up with viable solutions to the problems we have discussed. By doing this I feel like the class would be even richer in content.

In class out classed has put me on my own personal barometer. I am constantly reevaluating my opinions on the effects of class and education. This can be frustrating but, I believe it is a good thing for me because, it means I have kept an open mind throughout the class. This has in turn caused me to reconstruct my writing process. Now before I begin my essays, I look over class notes and the notes I make on the articles and I write down all of my thoughts and ideas. This helps me keep my essays focused because I have found it is easy to start writing and get caught up in several different ideas and topics. My goal at the beginning of this class was to improve my writing skills. This is still one of my goals but now I am more interested in trying to figure out what the correlation between education and class is and how the disparities that this causes can be fixed. I think my classmates are looking to get the same things out of the class, in addition, I believe some of them might also be working on improving their discussion skills. Overall, if I could add anything to the class, I would have everyone come prepared to discuss three different ideas or concepts from the reading that they prepared ahead of time. I think this would help further the discussions because people who are not as comfortable with the discussions would have talking points to start them off. Beside’s this I am still unsure about how I feel with both classes reading each other’s posts.

Like venn diagram, my interest was immediately captured by Andrew Sullivan’s “The He Hormone.” I appreciated the information on hormonal differences between males and females, but was frustrated at times by the ways Sullivan used these biological differences to explain differences in the social roles men and women take on. I understand that testosterone levels have an impact on many elements of our personality and behavior, such as an individual’s self-confidence and energy levels. However, using differences in testosterone levels to explain the fact that more men are in politics or powerful business positions than women do, negates the fact that important social factors are also at play.

Hey Everyone!

This link is just food for thought, but it points out something I think pertains to the article by Edmundson we read earlier in the semester. Justin Fox, a Harvard Business School professor, talks about the value of a college degree and how the supply of college graduates is much greater than the demand, which ultimately allows for a really horrible job market in the United States. He talks about how the cost of a degree is far more expensive than its worth in most cases today, and the possibility that this will create an education bubble that will eventually burst. 

I think this can really help explain Edmundson's point about the mentality of college students today who feel tremendous pressure to perform to perfection rather than taking risks.

-"The Education Bubble, Tenure Envy, and Tuition"

Harvard Business Review

http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2011/06/the-education-bubble-tenure-en.html

My reflection revolved around my ability to "edit" my ideas and rethink many opinions about our educational system that I once firmly believed in. Prior to being in this class, I had a strong belief that every student should go to college and those who didn't were destined to be failures. Even though I saw students who simply weren't raised to beleive college was even a remote possibility, I felt comfortable telling myself that these students simply weren't ambitious or motivated enough to reach college. Essentially, I was blaming these students for something that, in many aspects, was out of their control. Since being in this seminar, my views on the topic have changed tremendously; and I realize the adversity that disadvantaged students have in our educational system that promotes "fairness." My ability to really grapple with issues like these has been the area where I've seen the most growth in myself over the course of this seminar.