I like to learn stuff.
I’ve always liked words, language, and writing, but I equally enjoy learning about topics as diverse as deep sea biology, art history & restoration, geomorphology, meteorology, and critical theory. And I really love incorporating principles from seemingly unrelated fields into my work in Writing Studies. On this page, I share in no particular order a few of the classes I’ve taken that stand out in my memory. Sometimes that’s because the topics were exceptional, other times it’s because the instructors were amazing, and sometimes it’s both!
Love & Reason in Medieval Romance
If you want to have you butt kicked by a class, take something in Medieval Studies! This was one of the most rigorous and demanding classes I’ve ever taken. Thank you to this professor for pushing me to think more deeply and with greater complexity, and for introducing me to the weird world of courtly love!
Intro to Physical Geography
When I tell you that I hated this class… I mean I all-caps HATED it. But I hated it because it wasn’t what I expected (“geography means maps!!) and because the professor treated her first-semester community college students like graduate students. Because she made the class so hard, we all learned A LOT and I ended up falling in love with my twice-weekly hell, tutoring Physical Geography for two semesters and minoring in Geology when I transferred to a four-year college. The moral of the story? An unexpected and difficult class could become one of your favorites, if you give it a chance.
Interpersonal Communication
While I would hesitate to say this class was well-taught, I do not hesitate to say it was life-changing. As a start, my communication skills were forever transformed by learning about the Johari Window, French and Raven’s Taxonomy of Social Power, the many helpful models of communication, the concept of omnipresent communication noise, and even Grice’s Maxims (of which, I always violate the first).
Reading and Composition 1
Fun fact: I dropped out of college at the end of my first semester and took a seven-year hiatus from formal education. When I re-enrolled in community college (after reaching a 3:00am breaking point with my job as a cheesemonger), Comp 1A was the first class on my schedule. “First” feels like the perfect word for this class. It met on Mondays (ew), at 8:00am (ewww), starting in January (eww), and was the very first class I took as a returning college student (not ew!). How do I know Writing Studies is the right field for me? Well, for many college students (and instructors, to be honest) the first-year composition requirement is one of the most annoying classes in college. But from Day 1, I loved this class. I remember sitting in lecture and thinking, “Finally! FINALLY! I’m learning all the stuff I thought we were going to talk about in English class!” The advisor who placed me in this class wasn’t great, but I’m thankful for that. If she had suggested testing out of the composition requirement, I may have never discovered Writing Studies… and I might have ended up a History teacher! 😨
Drugs & Behavior
This class treated the sensitive subject of drug use with remarkable compassion. Students candidly discussed the legal, illegal, and illicit use of psychoactive substances and the impacts of drug usage on individuals, relationships, and society. I enjoyed this class so much that I actually bought the textbook three years after completing the course.
Critical Supercuts
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Learning and the Body
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Surface Processes
In Surface Processes, I was introduced to geomorphology, which is the study of how landforms come to be and change over time. For me, geomorphology is the narrative side of geology—what is the story of why this mountain looks the way it does? What is the biography of this valley? What future-history is this river writing? How did these rocks get here?! The narrative side of geomorphology proves to me that the arts and sciences don’t have to be exclusive, but can walk happily hand in hand.