As my prior blog post indicated, I was a new student at Butler University this semester. I had previously changed my major and had to change it again so I was able to compete for the baseball team under eligibility and compliance rules. Registering for classes and finding houses was all done three days before classes started and this semester was overall just very hectic for me. Our GHS course was a very unique experience in my eyes. I can truly say I have never had a class structured in the way that this one was, and it posed to be very challenging for me. First, I have no prior experience of any religious courses, or history courses in college for that matter. Being an engineer for half of my college career, courses were full of math and physics and not a whole lot else. The topics religion and culture are very foreign to me and something I definitely have a hard time engaging with. As I spoke about one on one with Dr. McGrath, it was really hard for me to express that I had done the reading daily in class. We are all college students and have other courses so we know how difficult reading every word of every assignment is. Yet I did my best to have a solid grasp on the material everyday for class. My struggle came more when we discussed in class. Since this course handled topics I wasn’t really knowledgeable with, I found it more beneficial for myself to listen to the discussions and follow along in the text we were diving into for that day. This helped me retain what others were saying and connect it directly back to what we were reading, yet this was very ineffective in showing Dr. McGrath that I was actually participating and doing what we were supposed to be doing for class.
Moving on to the structure of the class, this posed a whole different challenge for me. I hate to continue living in the past, but I just truly had never had a class structured from a game-like style Dr. McGrath used. I was so used to strict deadlines for all homework and assignments that I really found myself slacking when it came to blogging, and this ultimately hurt me long term. I always had the thought that I could just do it all next week, or the week after, and this just lead to constant procrastination and now fighting to raise my blog score over the past month of the semester, which with finals and all was way more stressful than if I would just have kept up.
Luckily, through communication with Dr. McGrath, I feel I was able to demonstrate the issues I was having with this class and all things outside of class such as finding a job as I’m a fourth year student and not having an academic advisor etc; the list goes on and on. Although I am hopefully going to come out with the grade I desired in this course, I had to rely on frequent make up work and the built in extra credit option Dr. McGrath structured into the course to do so. My one recommendation for anyone taking this course is just to stay on top of blogs and be as communicative as you possibly can be, in class and with Dr. McGrath.
Outside of my struggle, this course definitely expanded my knowledge in a way a lot of my prior courses weren’t able to. I now view the world a bit differently and am coming to understand it is crucial to life and business to understand different societies and cultures if you wish to be successful. The ICR component of this course, which I also highly recommend, facilitated engaging in the community and different cultures outside the classroom which also adds to the individuality as this course as a whole. I struggled way more than I should have, but I think this course was a great learning experience, one which hopefully I am not punished too harshly by. I really enjoyed reading all of your posts and the discussions we had in class and wish you all the best and a wonderful holiday!