Hello Sir,
I hope you are in good health. I regret not emailing you
earlier but I voluntarily decided not to. Not that there was scarcity of work-
first week of college and I spent two entire night working. My course load this
semester has hit maximum that the college allows, and I can see why load beyond
this is only permitted by Dean's consent. I wanted to have – ah, well, more
material – as it comes to my mind – to write to you.
The courses I will have this semester are 1) Calculus
Physics I; 2) Calculus and Analytic Geometry I; 3) Philosophy: Ethics, Justice
and Society; 4) First Year Seminar (FYS): How to Crush college; and 5)
Global Engagement Seminar (an interdepartmental 8 week course). From the sight
and value of it, this is indeed a diverse academic engagement for me. My FYS
advisor- who is also going to be my academic advisor till I declare a major- is
a neuroscientist and so in this course I will be learning about effective
learning strategies and their relation to response and the changes of brain
functions. So basically I will learn the art of learning. This
is indeed very instrumental for my overall learning process, rather than just a
course in college. The classes are engaging, and it is amazing to see how much
the class content and discussion are propelled by student discussion and
interaction- of course this is not the case for Physics and Math- where there
are not things to "argue" about at this stage. But within the first
week of the philosophy class we have covered Plato's Republic, Feinberg's take
on Psychological egoism, Benedict's Moral Relativism, and the most recent one
is Mackie's The Argument for Queerness. My roommate is also taking the same
philosophy course with a different professor; it is surprising to see how
different professors have included different philosophers for the perspective
for ethics and society. However, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx are
quite omnipresent- Karl Marx kind of being the topic by which all teachers will
end this semesters. The Global Engagement Seminar Class actually has no book-
just online reading and class discussions. Sometimes there will be
presentations of authors of books, attending which will be a part of our
course- and this year the general theme is on China.
At this point, it may seem weird for a prospective Math
and Physics major to be talking of only courses that are so different in the
nature of their disciplines - but I guess technical subjects demand more time
to be actually more inclusive of "our wisdom". However, the start has
been rough, but not at all dull. One thing I have found out that it is hard to
be inclusive of both the empirical and non-empirical mode of thinking and be a
friend of both. At this point I do not know if I can pursue both- but liberal
arts do allow the flexibility to choose, which I am glad of.
One thing I would regret is to not making a writing
graded paper or research paper, cause the emphasis that they put on writing is
beyond imagination. My first two Math assignments have been ESSAYS! Thus,
the experiences of Anglophiles remain treasured, and I never realized till now,
how much I would be willing to sacrifice at this point for someone to scream
"Rejected", cause now it is quite upon me to realize what to reject,
although the support systems in the college is great. Yet, it is more official
rather than the intimate aura of the Anglophiles class. Nostalgia has never
served me well, so this is what I will skip also this time. But Anglophiles has
been a steep curve in the learning stage in my life- both the academic and the
non academics. Although things here seem very intense, I can feel that my
learning curve is headed not only to a steeper graph, but can start roughly
close to where I have left. Nevertheless, it is hard to determine the end of the
path for Anglophiles, for following the blog is still quite a routine activity
for me. Maybe this is one of those things that do not fit into my model of a
graph and demand more than quantitative assessment. Maybe the experiences I am
leaving behind along the trail WHERE every minute will be best determined in
the distant retrospect. I can only determine the empirical worth of Anglophiles
at this point, but the non empirical one is also one I would continue to
speculate about before coming to my "version" of it.
Nevertheless, I can see that the application process is
going really intense- sometimes I do grow a feeling of jealousy over the
variety of readings that they are going through. This is, maybe, one of those
things that one can be able to understand fully in retrospect- and the people
going through the intense work may not be sharing my sentiments at this point.
However, the worth of these things is very tangible and "empirical"
in nature- so I wish the ongoing batch best of luck. At this point, I will avoid
spending any more of your time. I will be keeping in regular contact, once I
get a tighter grip on my time management skills.
Best,
Rahul.
P.S. This has not been my first draft …