New Goals for a New Semester

The sad life of a college student in a required class. Ok, ok, I'll admit it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I'm talking about Masterpieces of Western Literature and Philosophy! I feel like that name should be in flashing lights on a large billboard. It seems that generations of students would agree (or maybe we are all just too lazy to call anything by its full name) because to most of us, the class is known simply as "LitHum."

During the first semester, we read a total of ten books. Among them were: The Iliad, The Odyssey, Greek playwrights, Herodotus, Plato, and even the Bible. I use the term "read" very loosely since it's hard to believe that anyone could find the time to read so much!

Last semester, I managed to read as much as I could and ended up doing pretty well in the class. Something keeps bothering me, though. At the beginning of the semester, all of us overeager freshmen were put in an auditorium where we were told that these core classes would make us all a little wiser.

Well, I reflected on this. Like the OCD student I am, I meticulously filled out the non-required evaluation at the end of the course. I realized that yes, I had learned more about life in the last three or four months, but I wasn't able to express how LitHum in particular had made me a better person or wiser in any way. What I can say for sure is that I feel more "accomplished" when I think about how much I have read, but other than that, I'm not exactly sure.

I think that I need to do things differently next semester. As soon as I get back to my dorm room, I plan on putting a poster on my wall with all of my new goals. Prime items on the list are studying more and avoiding distractions. But I also want to put more effort into this LitHum class.

As I read and go to class, I will write in this blog all of my thoughts on the books and the course overall. For the most part, I'll use this as a study tool for the final at the end of the semester, but maybe I can also figure out what they meant when they told us we'd be wiser.