Philosophy 100
Self Directional Skills
This semester I decided to take a Philosophy 100 class at UHMC for my sociology credit. So far the Philosophy 100 class has been all about understanding how philosophy works and understanding the works of historical philosophers like Descartes, Locke, Plato, and Aristotle. Abd unlike most other entry level philosophy classes my philosophy professor trusts my class to use and write papers on primary source materials. This essentially means that instead of getting to go over someone explaining or reviewing what a particular philosophical work means I get to read and examine things like Plato's Apology and The Meno directly. In addition to having to understand the nuances of philosophical writings my class is also required us to write a total of 4000 words in the form of five or six five hundred word essays and a single one thousand five hundred word essay at the end of the semester.
Nearly all college classes require a good amount of self direction, but because of the current pandemic and how my particular philosophy professor likes to conduct his lectures and assignments I've found that this particular college class takes a lot of self directional skills. In fact, around six people had dropped the class by the third assignment simply because they didn't turn in their papers.
Knowing that it's difficult for even college students to keep up with the work load, I'm actually pretty proud that I was able to keep up with the work load and turn in my assignments on time while balancing all of the other work from my other classes. And while I did have a similar experience with completing my English 100 work last semester the assignments is Philosophy 100 are much more difficult. And because of that I'm pretty proud that I was able to keep up with all of the stuff that class threw at me.
The 21st Century skills that I improved the most are easily my Self Directional and Informational skills because I was honestly kind thrown in the deep end of self direction and organising information into something I can use in an essay.
Even though the amount of self directed and information orientated work was a lot more than I was used to the most difficult part of doing this class was the standards set by my professor. I remember that my first paper that came back was full of notes that said things like: "says who?" or "that begs the question." However, after that assignment I quickly learned what my professor expected from us and I improved my academic writing a lot.
If I could start over and do Philosophy 100 again I would work to better cite my sources on my first assignment. Even though we did get to resubmit the first assignment I still want there to have been less "says who"s in the suggestions.
Despite reading books or watching movies and writing reports or summaries on them I've never had to do anything quite like this. The difference being that instead of reading an article or summary of Plato's work I had to read, take notes on, and review primary sources like Plato's Apology and The Meno.
Even though I plan on majoring in engineering I imagine that I'll still be studying some form of literature or writing in college. So being able to understand, study, and write about primary sources is absolutely invaluable. In addition to that the ACT test requires reading tests and if I'm able to analyse material as difficult as Plato's Allegory of The cave I'll certainly be able to analyse and understand everything on the ACT.
Nearly all college classes require a good amount of self direction, but because of the current pandemic and how my particular philosophy professor likes to conduct his lectures and assignments I've found that this particular college class takes a lot of self directional skills. In fact, around six people had dropped the class by the third assignment simply because they didn't turn in their papers.
Knowing that it's difficult for even college students to keep up with the work load, I'm actually pretty proud that I was able to keep up with the work load and turn in my assignments on time while balancing all of the other work from my other classes. And while I did have a similar experience with completing my English 100 work last semester the assignments is Philosophy 100 are much more difficult. And because of that I'm pretty proud that I was able to keep up with all of the stuff that class threw at me.
The 21st Century skills that I improved the most are easily my Self Directional and Informational skills because I was honestly kind thrown in the deep end of self direction and organising information into something I can use in an essay.
Even though the amount of self directed and information orientated work was a lot more than I was used to the most difficult part of doing this class was the standards set by my professor. I remember that my first paper that came back was full of notes that said things like: "says who?" or "that begs the question." However, after that assignment I quickly learned what my professor expected from us and I improved my academic writing a lot.
If I could start over and do Philosophy 100 again I would work to better cite my sources on my first assignment. Even though we did get to resubmit the first assignment I still want there to have been less "says who"s in the suggestions.
Despite reading books or watching movies and writing reports or summaries on them I've never had to do anything quite like this. The difference being that instead of reading an article or summary of Plato's work I had to read, take notes on, and review primary sources like Plato's Apology and The Meno.
Even though I plan on majoring in engineering I imagine that I'll still be studying some form of literature or writing in college. So being able to understand, study, and write about primary sources is absolutely invaluable. In addition to that the ACT test requires reading tests and if I'm able to analyse material as difficult as Plato's Allegory of The cave I'll certainly be able to analyse and understand everything on the ACT.