HONORS PORTFOLIO

What we know and how we know it is most easily described as an honors composition class.  It is most technically described as HONORS 205.  It is most widely described as "that class I wanted to get into".  It is most accurately described as...  Well, it cannot really be described accurately concisely at all.  

 

College is a time of major change in perspective.  It is a stage of further opening of the world ahead of each of us.  At a large university such as UW, diversity is bountiful.  This class is really a very fitting way to transition from high school, where everybody lives in the same general area and is around the same age, to college where students come from worldwide and are of varying ages with varying backgrounds and very diverse stories.  College is also a time when, with all the external stimuli, introspection becomes essential to maintaining sanity and the self.  How fitting to center a class that prepares the mind for scholarly thinking, the diversity of a large university, self-reflection, and navigating college around the theme of knowledge and ways of knowing. 

 

On his journey, Crispin was in search of one thing but ended up at something else.  My quest for knowledge took me right across the lake.  Ever since I can remember, it was kind of a given that I would attend UW.  I have lived in the Eastside since I was a baby.  Last Spring when I was making a decision about where to attend college I fantasized about going across the country just like my friends were.  In the end, since I did not, and still do not, know what I want to specialize in yet, it made the most sense to come to UW.  It was an utterly unexciting conclusion, but it was practical. 

 

I have decided to kind of take on my journey through college as a wandering scholar, thinker and questioner.  I have no plan as of now, so I have chosen to take advantage of the breadth of classes here and not force myself to be constrained to one path just yet.  So far, it has been advantageous.  Over orientation I decided my autumn classes over the two periods I visited the registration lab.  I have been pleasantly surprised by how my classes have played on each other this quarter.

 

The classes that I took this quarter intertwined surprisingly well, and I think the common thread was the theme of knowledge.  In informatics a big theme was how humans convert information to knowledge and process information.  In computer science we are teaching a computer tasks which involve a lot of logical thinking and analysis of thought and steps.  My physics of time class discussed different frames of reality and our perception of the truth and the real, actual universe.  Each of our “nows” are different and so are our realities.  What we know and how we know it discussed the underlying theme of knowledge itself—thrust it into center stage and gave it the attention it deserves.  In computer science we talked about the concept of meta, that is something about itself.  Honors 205 is a very meta class.  It is pursuing knowledge about the pursuit of knowledge.  It gave me a chance to take a step outside my own thinking and thinking process and not necessarily judge or critique it, but to simply observe and appreciate it.  I began to pay a lot more attention to why I was thinking something and also hone in on my approaches to challenging situations. 

 

I have learned that brainstorming is a waste of time for me.  I cannot chase out or force out ideas, I have to wait for them to come, and they are coaxed by the pressure of rapidly approaching deadlines.  I learned that more knowledge sticks with me when approaching an issue from multiple angles.  The small focus groups we did before the philosopher’s visit really helped clarify the issue and the complexities of climate change.  I do not handle criticism very well, so I was very thankful for the peer editing strategies we learned.  I usually am very apprehensive about sharing my creative work with others, but the peer editing strategies really helped comfort me and I had a lot more trust in my peers to be kind with their criticism and so I began to share my work more openly.  Writing the children’s’ story showed me how little I actually knew about the subject of quantum entanglement and I had to do some research.  As the author of the story I also had to decide which details and discrepancies were worth reflecting in the story and which ones would just complicate the story (especially with a child’s understanding and attention span) and detract from the fun aspect of it.  In the end, I understood entanglement a lot better than before. 

 

There are two very satisfying moments that this class gifted to me.  One of them was quietly making my way to the architecture section of Odegaard, sitting cross-legged on the floor and pulling large worn and well-read books off the shelf and perusing the pictures like a small child “reading” a picture book.  The silent library, old books, photographs of historic buildings, it gave a magical feeling of a very personal connection to the past, and reminded me just how young I was but how I was still part of a vast past. 

 

Another moment (which wasn’t really a moment) was my contribution to the final presentation.  My informatics class and Owen’s visit both inspired and re-awakened my inner artist.  In past group projects I would be doing so much of the work that I wouldn’t be able to work on what I really wanted to.  Luckily, my group for the group project was a terrific group and I was free to exercise my artistic side.  Near the beginning of the year, Frances dropped a hint about the integration of science and art.  I already kind of looked out for that, but I jumped on that hint and have been extra alert ever since.  I usually do not like open ended prompts and find them very nerve wracking, but for the group project I am so glad that it was open ended because it made a great platform for releasing my creative energy.  I really enjoyed designing the website, making the infographic and drawing the doodles (which were kind of a whim). 

 

The thing that bothers me about open ended prompts is that despite the openness I know that someone is going to be judging my work and the open-endedness means that they can have any excuse to criticize my work.  Before I found out that the poem imitation was zero points it gave me a lot of anxiety.  I thought that such an open ended prompt was bound to be a trick of some sort and that I had to guess exactly the right way to do it and if I was wrong something bad would happen.  Looking back, that was a very silly assumption to make.  The openness was to our advantage and the assignment was made to help us better understand the poem.  I thought it was one of the cleverest ways to come to understanding something—and the assignment ended up being a lot of fun. 

 

The speakers we had is class, the skills we learned, the lenses we looked through, the subjects we explored, and the ways of knowing we experienced all combined to enhance my first quarter of college.  While the class played a large role in my first impression of the college experience, it also took a secondary support role as being a kind of glue to hold my other explorations and studies, both academic and not, together.  As I said above, the richness of the college environment and the blossoming of a world can be tiring, and this class also gave me many opportunities and reasons to reflect upon my own learning experience and my ways of knowing rather than the content itself.  Frances and the guest speakers all seem to have granted me the permission to continue my journey as a wandering wonderer, so I will.