Hello all, it seems crazy to say, but it was midterms week this past week! Crazy! Now, at home midterms would probably mean a lot of tests or papers all due at exactly the same time on exactly the same day, right? I am only just now getting over the anxiety I felt during last semester's midterms week! Okay, okay, I got over it last week but who's counting anyway?
Well, here in Galway, midterms week was really more of a... well... it was like any other week of the semester. Schooling here is so different! I turned in my first assignment of any/all of my classes on Friday, it was a paper for my Ocean and Marine Politics module. Remember when I explained the grading and terminology a few weeks back? I hope you were reading carefully, because I'm about to explain the actual modules now!
My first course is called SP404: Development and Change. It is a lecture module, it takes place in two different lecture halls and is taught (officially) by two women. SP404 is a third year module, meaning it is for what we would call seniors and/or graduate students. In Ireland university only lasts three years! SP404: Development and Change is a course that details the social theories involved in defining and decoding the meaning of societal "development," or how society goes from a traditional to a modern identity. It is very reading intensive. There is no textbook, in fact, there are no text books for any of my classes. All of our readings (there are usually about three per week) are assigned and given to us via Blackboard (like Moodle) online. Our readings are not strictly required, we are not quizzed on them, nor do we write about them, or use them to write anything with. They simply serve to broader our horizons and deepen our engagement with the lecture notes which are also given to us before the lecture on Blackboard. In week 9, SP404 will have an online MCQ (multiple choice question) exam worth 20% of our overall grade. It will be 20 minutes time for ten questions and will cover every topic that we have covered since the beginning of the lecture. This includes topics such as: The Meaning of 'Development', Modernization Theory, Dependency Theory, Inequality Basic Needs & Human Development, and Gender and Development. At the conclusion of the semester we have two weeks of finals during which I will take a computerized final exam for this module.
My second course is called SP3116 Ocean and Marine Politics. In this module I am studying the politics of the ocean. This is one of my favorite modules. It meets once a week, on Wednesdays for two hours. It is also reserved for third year and graduate students. In this module I recently handed in my 2,000 word midterm essay. For my essay I chose to write about Fisheries Disputes, a.k.a. proxy wars, between Iceland and Britain, and China and Japan. I also could have written about UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), or a documentary we watched by Greenpeace, or some other topics too. I chose the fisheries dispute but I thought it was the most interesting as both of the disputes involve(d) the United States -- not everything we talk about in this course does. For a final I will complete a second 2,000 word essay and a short 10-15 question in-class MCQ.
My third course is called SP493 Environmentalism. This is an interesting module. It is called Environmentalism, and yet, halfway through the semester we have not discussed what you might assume we would have discussed. We have spent a great deal of time on theoretical discussions, bringing up the socio-political theories of Marx, Hardin, Marcuse, and Bookchin! We have read from classics and a book by Robyn Eckersley about the socio-political implications on ecology. We have embraced the ecological theories of eco-anarchism, eco-socialism, and eco-marxism. We have debated the pros and cons of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. For all of this, I am expected to write a single essay around 2,500 or 3,000 words. That is all. It meets once a week for two hours. It is my favorite course. (You may have noticed I keep giving word limits on my essays, that is because 1,600-2,500 word essays are short essays, anything above is a long essay. Essays are not assigned with page specifications but word limits.)
My fourth and final course is Eng150,1 Service Learning (you thought it would be another SP didn't you?). This is my only non-Sociology course, and it is also my only course that is not only for third year or graduate students! I needed a break somewhere, I can barely keep on top of all of my reading assignments from the three other courses! This is very special course for a few reasons. First, it is only for U.S. students. Second, we had to apply to get into the course, and only a few students were accepted. Third, we get to make a positive impact on the community via this course. What do I mean by this, you may ask? We, meaning me and my peers, get to volunteer our time once a week at a local Deis school. A Deis (desh) school is a school that is populated by students from families that we might call "underprivileged," or "at risk." The school is run by a lovely woman named Sister Margaret, who has dedicated her life to educating the young of Shantalla. The school is called Scoil Bhride, and it is the primary education sight for some of the loveliest youths of Galway. The hour I spend a week at Scoil Bhride is one of the best hours of my week, reliably. In class for Service Learning, we have one lecture and one seminar a week, thus we meet twice a week. During the lecture we discuss learning and teaching techniques, how the brain learns, education techniques and new or ongoing research about changing education environments. We have discussed topics such as early childhood language acquisition, left and right brain learning, memory transformation, early literacy education, and the benefits of listening to music while studying. In our seminars each week we discuss our experiences while volunteering at Scoil Bhride, we also read a book called A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. This book is meant to give us a better understanding of the living situations of the students we tutor, it is a very good book and I highly recommend it! For this course I am responsible for keeping a weekly journal and will write an in-class essay on the final day of class. In the last week of classes (the week of Thanksgiving) we will hold a party for the children at the school. Link to Scoil Bhride Primary Website
Yes, I am learning a lot. A heck of a lot. While we don't have much assessment, we have a lot of reading assignments and plenty of opportunity to shine during class discussions. I quite like not having tests every two or three weeks, or quizzes after reading assignments. In fact, if I had a quiz each week per reading assignment I'd be dead right now. They really do need to scale down on the reading assignments! But anyway, the emphasis is on gaining access to the information that interests you, not that interests the professor. It is different, interesting, and kind of nerve wracking. It has taken extra effort for me to get used to the whole, no assessment thing. It's pretty freaky! But now that the half-way mark has been reached, I think I an reconcile with the knowledge that midterms aren't a thing here and that as long as I read some of each of the three 30 page reading assignments per class, I'll be ready for class discussions and ready to write my essays!
Well, here in Galway, midterms week was really more of a... well... it was like any other week of the semester. Schooling here is so different! I turned in my first assignment of any/all of my classes on Friday, it was a paper for my Ocean and Marine Politics module. Remember when I explained the grading and terminology a few weeks back? I hope you were reading carefully, because I'm about to explain the actual modules now!
My first course is called SP404: Development and Change. It is a lecture module, it takes place in two different lecture halls and is taught (officially) by two women. SP404 is a third year module, meaning it is for what we would call seniors and/or graduate students. In Ireland university only lasts three years! SP404: Development and Change is a course that details the social theories involved in defining and decoding the meaning of societal "development," or how society goes from a traditional to a modern identity. It is very reading intensive. There is no textbook, in fact, there are no text books for any of my classes. All of our readings (there are usually about three per week) are assigned and given to us via Blackboard (like Moodle) online. Our readings are not strictly required, we are not quizzed on them, nor do we write about them, or use them to write anything with. They simply serve to broader our horizons and deepen our engagement with the lecture notes which are also given to us before the lecture on Blackboard. In week 9, SP404 will have an online MCQ (multiple choice question) exam worth 20% of our overall grade. It will be 20 minutes time for ten questions and will cover every topic that we have covered since the beginning of the lecture. This includes topics such as: The Meaning of 'Development', Modernization Theory, Dependency Theory, Inequality Basic Needs & Human Development, and Gender and Development. At the conclusion of the semester we have two weeks of finals during which I will take a computerized final exam for this module.
My second course is called SP3116 Ocean and Marine Politics. In this module I am studying the politics of the ocean. This is one of my favorite modules. It meets once a week, on Wednesdays for two hours. It is also reserved for third year and graduate students. In this module I recently handed in my 2,000 word midterm essay. For my essay I chose to write about Fisheries Disputes, a.k.a. proxy wars, between Iceland and Britain, and China and Japan. I also could have written about UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), or a documentary we watched by Greenpeace, or some other topics too. I chose the fisheries dispute but I thought it was the most interesting as both of the disputes involve(d) the United States -- not everything we talk about in this course does. For a final I will complete a second 2,000 word essay and a short 10-15 question in-class MCQ.
My third course is called SP493 Environmentalism. This is an interesting module. It is called Environmentalism, and yet, halfway through the semester we have not discussed what you might assume we would have discussed. We have spent a great deal of time on theoretical discussions, bringing up the socio-political theories of Marx, Hardin, Marcuse, and Bookchin! We have read from classics and a book by Robyn Eckersley about the socio-political implications on ecology. We have embraced the ecological theories of eco-anarchism, eco-socialism, and eco-marxism. We have debated the pros and cons of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism. For all of this, I am expected to write a single essay around 2,500 or 3,000 words. That is all. It meets once a week for two hours. It is my favorite course. (You may have noticed I keep giving word limits on my essays, that is because 1,600-2,500 word essays are short essays, anything above is a long essay. Essays are not assigned with page specifications but word limits.)
My fourth and final course is Eng150,1 Service Learning (you thought it would be another SP didn't you?). This is my only non-Sociology course, and it is also my only course that is not only for third year or graduate students! I needed a break somewhere, I can barely keep on top of all of my reading assignments from the three other courses! This is very special course for a few reasons. First, it is only for U.S. students. Second, we had to apply to get into the course, and only a few students were accepted. Third, we get to make a positive impact on the community via this course. What do I mean by this, you may ask? We, meaning me and my peers, get to volunteer our time once a week at a local Deis school. A Deis (desh) school is a school that is populated by students from families that we might call "underprivileged," or "at risk." The school is run by a lovely woman named Sister Margaret, who has dedicated her life to educating the young of Shantalla. The school is called Scoil Bhride, and it is the primary education sight for some of the loveliest youths of Galway. The hour I spend a week at Scoil Bhride is one of the best hours of my week, reliably. In class for Service Learning, we have one lecture and one seminar a week, thus we meet twice a week. During the lecture we discuss learning and teaching techniques, how the brain learns, education techniques and new or ongoing research about changing education environments. We have discussed topics such as early childhood language acquisition, left and right brain learning, memory transformation, early literacy education, and the benefits of listening to music while studying. In our seminars each week we discuss our experiences while volunteering at Scoil Bhride, we also read a book called A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. This book is meant to give us a better understanding of the living situations of the students we tutor, it is a very good book and I highly recommend it! For this course I am responsible for keeping a weekly journal and will write an in-class essay on the final day of class. In the last week of classes (the week of Thanksgiving) we will hold a party for the children at the school. Link to Scoil Bhride Primary Website
Yes, I am learning a lot. A heck of a lot. While we don't have much assessment, we have a lot of reading assignments and plenty of opportunity to shine during class discussions. I quite like not having tests every two or three weeks, or quizzes after reading assignments. In fact, if I had a quiz each week per reading assignment I'd be dead right now. They really do need to scale down on the reading assignments! But anyway, the emphasis is on gaining access to the information that interests you, not that interests the professor. It is different, interesting, and kind of nerve wracking. It has taken extra effort for me to get used to the whole, no assessment thing. It's pretty freaky! But now that the half-way mark has been reached, I think I an reconcile with the knowledge that midterms aren't a thing here and that as long as I read some of each of the three 30 page reading assignments per class, I'll be ready for class discussions and ready to write my essays!
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