December 16, 2016 - 12:31
As I bid my family members goodbye at my going away party, I was reminded rather universal by my family that the first semester of college is the hardest part and making it through those few months is true stamina. Well, if you did not know, I am alway eager for a challenge and so I told them brazenly that my mind was sharp and I would go bold into the unknown. This pretense set me up to have many disastrous expectations. However, I am pleased to say, Esem was not one of these mishaps. In fact, it was far from it and instead I feel as though I learned multitudes about myself as an individual with a multifaceted identity, as well as the future steps I want to take as part of the Bryn Mawr Community and on a side note I also was introduced to a more cohesive environmental outlook. While I found it thoroughly arduous at time, the weekly postings forced me to excel both in my writing and my critical responses. I think that it was a little complicated to complete being that the essay was scheduled on Friday and with other freshman less invested in their esem course, but I appreciated the pressure. I felt a growth in my analytical skills and through shifted how I set up my argument as not around my view but around facts. At the start of the class I had my apprehensions, I thought that the class would touch only the surface points of identity and be limited to BMC’s glossy liberal ideals. However, after reading and analyzing different pieces specifically Suzan Lori Park’s novel the class proved to be a fair playing ground for people to question and have dialogue. This was one of the many things that I admired about the class; we were allowed a safe space to touch contact zones and learn from our slips. I learned that while in highschool it was acceptable to be very vocal in classes at a small liberal arts school that relies on small class discussions it like socratic seminars there must be an even distribution of participation. I may not have completely master the art of staying silent when riled but I feel as though I put my best foot forward while attempting to offer others with space to speak. This was a very important lesson and probably the most impactful because I was then able to hear my classmates more fully and truly understand where they were coming from. Many of the students in the class were international and all had a different set of circumstances that me so it was definitely good to take a step back and understand my place in the class. When I was younger, I had a nun for a religion teacher and she said that one of the most principle skill we will ever learn was an acronym LHR- Listen, Hear, Respond. Understanding identity has always come rather naturally to me because it's something that I very much pursue academically, in that I want to work with identities in my future career. The read material was interesting and diverse offering multiple perspectives on identity as well as the roles people play in the lives around them and the environment. Some, I felt, were a bit too complex for the class as a whole and when the class was too confused the discussions were not productive and left you filling the holes. My favorite part about the class was the one-on-one meetings because I think Anne is really cool. Also I thought the moving class setting, unique aspect of our class, was a brilliant way to expose us to different settings, identities, and academic environments. The project Cathy and I did was rushed but very informative and insightful as to the sentiment of the school and the relations between different groups of people on campus. The two of us were able to pull together a vast and diverse group of interviewees and really get at the core problems in the BMC undergraduate community. While we discovered there is no easy way to solve the problems within the community were were enlightened instead by the opportunities and the understand that it is up to us and the our fellow students to makes change. I think for me especially this project gave me insight and reason to want to stay at Bryn Mawr. For the past few weeks I had be rather disillusioned about the school and began adding up the reasons I wanted to leave. However, taht is when I realized no place is perfect. You don’t leave to canada when Trump is elected and you don’t just leave Bryn Mawr; you stick your heels in the mud and make a change.