AWS Final Reflection

Reflection:

Before coming into this class I had very little idea of what to expect and what I would be learning about this semester. I saw that it dealt with border thinking and at first I assumed the main thing we would be discussing would be immigration. However, I soon began to see we would be dealing with a lot more than just that.

The first thing that was new to me was watching films and analyzing them. I had watched films before for classes, but I had never had to analyze or think about them like I did for this class. For example, while watching the films we had to interpret the meanings and symbols such as in Children of Men and we saw how it relates to religion. What separated films from the readings, was that in films I was able to see how everything happened and had a clear visual of the details that were unfolding. Films were also helpful because the characters were always dressed appropriately and spoke the actual language of the region. I think the best example of this was in the movie Osama and how it showed 4 different cultures of people and how they live. The readings were also very interesting but it is always harder to try and picture the images in my own head. My favorite reading was probably The Middle of Everywhere because it was interesting to read about how people from foreign countries come to our own state and how they have to adapt to our way of living. This particular reading related more to me because it was an actual example from our area and I could understand more of what they were going through in their transition to our culture.  Another way of learning that we did almost everyday was with class discussions. I enjoyed working with groups and other people and hearing from classmates during discussion. I learned to listen to others ideas and tried to share my thoughts as well. What helped me express my own feelings and thoughts was because of how accepting and non judgmental everyone was. I feel like I have further developed my social skills because of this and I will be using my previous experiences in this class to guide me with group projects/discussions in the future. This also helped me learn new ideas and everyones input gave me a different point of view on the subjects we were discussing.

The most difficult and challenging part of this class was by far the 10-page research paper we had to do. It seemed to take forever to finally accomplish and once it was over with I felt very relieved. It did, however, greatly develop my writing skills because I was not used to the in-text citations and it was also the first time I had to use the Library on campus to gather resources, which I am sure I will have to do many times in the future. The class in general was a challenge in the fact that I was not well informed beforehand of many of the topics we discussed. I was soon caught to speed with many new topics such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Children of the Drug Wars. Some of the readings were also difficult and lengthy but I felt like I had a much better understanding once I had finished reading them. The most enlightening class activity to me was the Walk for Refugees that some of us went on. It really opened my eyes to a whole different world and I cannot imagine having to live in a tent that size with so many people. I was glad that I chose to participate in this event and I could see myself doing something similar to this in the future.

If I had to evaluate the class as a whole I would say it was very interesting and I learned a lot about borders and how borders are crossed everyday. I am glad I was able to take this particular course and have two great professors who taught me a lot about the subject and how to be a successful student at Nebraska Wesleyan as well. Also, I was lucky to be put in a class with a group of very smart classmates that I learned a lot from and hope to see in the future. In the end, this class exceeded my expectations and I am glad I was able to expand my own borders of learning.