Expectations

For this class, I expected to grow as a writer, a reader and a student of philosophy.

I knew that first-year perceptional are designed to be writing intensive and to help high school students into college-level writers. I took many English classes in high school and feel fairly well prepared for college level writing, but I believe that with every paper I will continue to improve both my writing process and the product itself. I also have never had feedback from a college professor, so I’m interested to see how their perspectives on my papers differ from that of a high school teacher. Finally, most of the papers I wrote in high school were literary analysis or historical research papers, so philosophy-based papers will be completely new for me, and as philosophy is a possible major for me I am eager to figure them out.

Going into the class, I expected to read more primary philosophic sources, which in my experience in high school I both found challenging and enjoyed immensely. I found it difficult to get past the esoteric language, as well as the background in philosophy that many writer’s seemed to assume their readers would have. I thought that through practice reading more philosophy, and through understanding some foundational concepts, I would become better at understanding it on the whole. I also wanted to become better at recognizing the dialogue between seemingly disparate subject matters–sometimes it seems to me as if two writers are talking about completely different concepts, but in reality they are just presenting two different ways to look at the same thing.

Finally, I acknowledge my relative ignorance of most philosophical ideas going into the course. I wanted to gain a more thorough understanding of any idea that would give me a foundation for the continued study of philosophy. I was especially interested in the application of more abstract concepts to the real world, so the focus of ethics was perfect.

Going into college, I was excited for the expansion of trust in my academic abilities that I thought would come from being a college student. In my last few terms in high school, my teachers trusted my ability to formulate my own theses and explore those idea’s and concepts that interested me within the works we were studying and writing, so that’s definitely something I am excited to be able to expand upon.

Over all, I am excited to finish the class and continue my growth as an interested learner.