Online Education Review

Online Education Review

I really like online classes. This was only my second one to take, but I wish I could have taken more. The best part about online classes is the freedom to fit it into your schedule. In person classes often times have a conflict or at terrible times. I think that many university's will eventually not have class in person. A quality recording of the professor's lecture has many advantages than in person, however, it makes asking questions more difficult. That is why office hours exist though. I just like how you can do online classes from anywhere you want with internet. 

(Mel Gibson in Braveheart)

Gen. Ed. Review

Gen. Ed. Experience

Overall, I would say that I have had a positive experience with my gen. ed. courses. I think they have been an important part of my education because they have exposed me to many different areas and broadened my thinking. My math and science general education has been extremely important because it laid the foundation for my future courses. Humanities have been a great experience and have taught me a lot of cool things. Just being exposed to different cultures has made me a more well rounded student and person in general. The humanities courses I have taken, along with others have stimulated a lot of thought about various subjects. I actually took an upper division Political Science course called Immigration Politics because I thought it covered the requirement that I am taking this class for. Even though it did not count for anything gen. ed. requirement wise, it was one of my favorite courses throughout college and gave me the opportunity to take this class, which is another one of my favorites. The discourse in that class was great and exposed me to many other beliefs, of which I am very thankful for. My least favorite part about gen. ed. courses was probably the math. I will absolutely not miss having to teach myself an entire course. Some teachers do not speak very clear and it makes it difficult to learn. Some may just not be good teachers in general. They may be good researchers and be experts on the subject, but that does not mean that they can effectively teach it to others. Of course this is not limited to just math courses. Also, the fact that people can have different difficulty of the same class based on the teacher you have bothers me immensely. The reason this bothers me so much is that students are evaluated based on grade point average when trying to get an internship or enter the workforce. Course material, exams, teachers, grade distributions, etc. all vary from teacher to teacher and from year to year, so it is kind of like comparing apples to oranges when comparing two students based on g.p.a. At the same time I understand that there really are not many other options, in terms of evaluating students. I  a think good way could be to standardize all assignments, exams, and curricula for a specific class, regardless of professor. The professors could get together and decide on what to do specifically. They could teach it however they wanted, but every student taking that class would be examined the same, independent on professor. On the other hand, I have had many wonderful teachers throughout my general education. The number of awesome professors that I have had far outnumber the poor ones. My favorite part about my Gen. Ed. education have been the awesome professors that I have had.

(Yoda Meme)

College Writing Review

College Writing Review

My major is Industrial and Systems Engineering, so there has not been a ton of writing. The majority of writing has come in the form of lab reports, research projects, and other projects in general. Many of my exams have had free response questions, but those are sometimes answered with bullet points. Inside my major, the most writing intensive classes that I can think of have been Applied Research Methods and Ergonomics. The writing in those classes were lab reports, free response exam questions, and research papers. Outside of my major, the English Composition courses were the most writing intensive classes and were more of literary analysis type of writing. All in all, the courses I have taken have broadened the scope of my writing and have helped me break complex things down into something that is easily understood. 

The most helpful part of this class was giving me the freedom to write about whatever I wanted. Usually there is some structure to what I have to write and I have not had that freedom in a school setting since sixth grade English class, where we had daily journal entries about whatever we wanted. There has not been any part of this course that has not had a positive impact on my writing. I think a class that allows people to tell stories, similar to this course, would be awesome because it brings back some imagination that might have been lost.

(Zits)

Extra Reading Diary: Dante's Inferno

Dante's Inferno

Gate of Hell and Charon

All of these stories are dark and creepy, and this one is no different. The poor angels kicked out of heaven for being faithful to themselves rather than God moan very loudly because they are not allowed into Hell. Charon is a scary demon and is described very well throughout this story as well as in Limbo. I am pretty sure that Charon is also referenced in the stories of Greek Mythology too. 

Limbo

Limbo is exactly what I would have expected it to be. Which is basically a place of nothingness. The saddest part about Limbo is that all people who do not follow Christianity or are not baptized are sent to it. Even before the time of Christianity, people were sent to Limbo instead of heaven. I do not think that is very fair, considering that they did not know what to believe in and had never heard of Christianity before. Some prominent people have been lucky enough to be taken from there, however.

(Christ in Limbo)

Fallen Angels

This story is creepy as well. I picture fallen angels to be giant and scary. I can only imagine their anger after being banished from Heaven. I thought this story was very interesting though and shows Dante's fear of being lost in Deep Hell while he is still alive. Lucky for him however, he has Virgil who is watching out for him and promises to never leave him in Hell. If I were Dante, I would be terrified the entire time. Hell is one of those places that I never want to experience, alive or not. He truly is brave for doing so while alive and not forced there after death. 

Storytelling for Week 14: The Wicked Witch of the West

The Wicked Witch of the West

There once was a prince who desperately needed a wife in order to take the throne. His requirements were that she was a princess, beautiful, and loving, Months went by with no luck of finding a woman who met those qualities, and the prince began to lose hope. Then one day, there was a knock at the gate. It caught everyone off guard because it was storming violently. The even bigger surprise was that the person who knocked on the gate was a woman. This woman had long blonde hair and was the most beautiful woman the prince had ever seen.

Mesmerized by her incredibly good looks and charm, the prince let her into the house for some tea. The two talked for hours and then the prince asked one last question. This woman had it all, but the prince feared that she may not be a princess. To his joy, the woman was a princess. The prince was determined to make her his wife and proposed on the spot. There was something off about the princess, but the prince was too focused on her good looks. The two married the very next day and the prince seemed to be the happiest man in the world. 

The princess was no ordinary woman. She was the Wicked Witch of the West and had tricked her way into marriage with a prince twice before. Shortly after her weddings, she would poison the prince and become the new leader. She was a power thirsty and would not stop at anything to achieve it. Her secret to getting the men to fall in love with her was her love spell, which could make anyone fall in love with someone.  

(Charlize Theron in Snow White and the Huntsman)

Luckily for the prince, his loyal servant did his research into who the woman truly was. He discovered that she was really the Wicked Witch of the West and had been known to marry and kill the prince to achieve power. So before the witch could do anything, they sentenced her to death and killed her. 

Author's Note

The original version of the story had a prince looking for a "real" princess to marry, but he could not find any. This was until a princess knocked at their gate during a storm. The way they tested to see if the princess was "real" or not was by forcing them to sleep on a bunch of mattresses with a pea at the bottom. If the woman could feel the pea and not sleep well, then they were deemed a "real" princess, This woman felt the pea and slept poorly, therefore she was "real" and the prince married her. I wanted to make this story a little darker and so I made the woman a witch who kills her husband and rules over kingdoms. 

Bibliography

Original: The Princess and the Pea

Author: Hans Christian Andersen translated by H.P. Paull

Year of Translation: 1872

Web Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook

Reading Diary B: Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen

The Princess and the Pea

I really enjoyed this story, especially because of how short and sweet it was. The story starts by saying that there is a Prince who wanted to marry a princess, but only a "real" princess. He had found many princesses, but they were not "real". When I first read this, I thought it meant he did not love the other princesses or something like that. As I read on, I soon found that this was not the case. The way his family determined whether or not it was a real princess was placing a bunch of mattresses on top of a pea, and if the princess feels the pea while she slept, then she would be deemed a "real" princess. Sure enough, a princess shows up at the gates in the middle of a storm and sleeps on top of the mattresses. She complained of sleeping poorly because of something pointing her back and was thus deemed a "real" princess. The Prince went on to marry the "real" princess.

The Wicked Prince

This story was very entertaining and had a good ending. The prince in the story kind of reminded me of Xerxes from the movie 300, when the Persians tried to conquer Sparta. Similar to that movie, the wicked prince also wants to conquer everyone, destroying many kingdoms and killing men, women, and children along the way. The wicked prince ends up believing he can defeat God, which is ridiculous. In 300, Xerxes believes he is a god and won't stop until he conquers everyone. I think he honestly believed he was an immortal God in the movie, until Leonidas made him bleed. Apparently, Xerxes, in real life, actually sentenced the sea 300 lashes for destroying two of his bridges. They are both oblivious to their own tyranny, which I have noticed is very common throughout history. The whole time, the wicked prince, like Xerxes, believes that there is no wrong in what they are doing. In order to challenge God, the wicked prince has his people build a giant ship with a thousand guns and had hundreds of eagles attached to it to give it flight. Picturing the eagles carrying a giant ship is pretty funny and clearly unrealistic, but is also cool. Not surprisingly, he ends up being no challenge to God and his angels. In the end, he ends up being humiliated by a single gnat. Everyone laughed because the prince thought he could defeat God and ended up being defeated by a single gnat. Although it wasn't the harshest of lessons, I thought it was a good one. The wicked prince deserved much worse for what he had done, but these stories are more fitted for children. The descriptions of what the wicked prince had done to the lands he conquered never went into much depth and left it for the imagination of and interpretation to the reader.

(Rodrigo Santoro playing Xerxes in the movie 300)

Week 13 Storytelling: Puss in Boots

The Origin Story of Puss in Boots

Once upon a time in a far away land existed a cat. The cat was not an ordinary one. His name was Puss and he was able to speak just like the people and wore black boots.

Puss' parents were brutally murdered by a wolves when he was just a young boy. and would change him forever. Just before the wolves arrived at their home, his parents hid him. Watching his parents die right before his eyes changed him forever.

A few days later when Puss ran out of food and water, he walked into the nearby town. He was spotted by a man by the name of Marquis. Marquis felt bad for the poor cat and brought him food and water without any questions. The man told him that he would leave food and water outside of his door in case he needed anything. This went on for a few weeks until, Marquis finally asked where his family was and what was wrong. Feeling indebted to the man, Puss felt obligated to tell him.

After hearing how the cat had lost his parents, Marquis felt horrible and offered to let Puss stay at his home with him. Puss immediately accepted and was extremely thankful for Marquis graciousness. So thankful that Puss promised to repay him through his friendship, loyalty, and animal hunting ability.

Now that Puss lived in the town, he was walking on hard ground a lot more. This caused his feet to hurt, get sore, and his nails to dull. Luckily for Puss, Marquis knew just what to do. Marquis bought him custom sized black leather boots to protect his hind feet. After a while, Puss was able to walk on his hind legs just like a human. Puss and Marquis were the best of friends and did everything together. This is the origin story of Puss in Boots and the rest is history.

(Puss in Boots)

Author's Note

The original story was pretty much nothing like this one and Puss' parents were not murdered by wolves. I wanted to write a more personal story about the relationship between Marquis and Puss because I felt like the original did not tell much about it. In the original, the author tells a lot about how Puss essentially gets Marquis married to the princess, but not really much about why Puss feels the need to do so much for him.

Bibliography

Author: Andrew Lang

Year: 1889

Web Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook