Online Education Review

I've taken quite a few online classes in my four years here and, honestly, I prefer them to in person classes. I like being able to work (for the most part) at my own pace. I don't have to be in a classroom at a certain time for a certain amount of time every single week. I can get to online classwork when I get to it. I personally think self-paced classes are the best, but I don't think it's necessary for students to have "full" control where everything is due by the last day of class. Lengthy and flexible deadlines makes for less stressed-out students.

One of the things I don't like about online classes are discussion posts. These assignments are meant to get you to engage with other students and the instructor (since you never actually meet up) as well as further your knowledge about whatever you learned that week. However, I mostly just find these assignments to be tedious wastes of my time. I hardly ever learn anything new from my classmates and I don't feel like I contribute much to others either. We're all just filling up the post with enough words to meet the occasional word requirement and seeming like we're saying something significant when we're really not.

Another sort of bad thing about most online classes is that I usually don't retain much of the information like I do in regular courses. I feel like this is due to a lack of reinforcement of the knowledge from the textbook that you get by attending a lecture. Instructors try to make up for this deficit with discussion posts, but I've already stated how pointless I think they are. However, this isn't entirely a bad thing because if you're taking a class about something that you're never going to use in your real life then it doesn't matter if you remember the material. As long as you can make a decent grade in the class and get that credit you need then you're good. This doesn't really apply to our Mythology and Folklore class, though, because you aren't learning new information so much as you are actually engaging with the material (the units we read) and doing things with it (rewriting stories, commenting on people's projects, etc.).

If I could design my own online course I would set it up in 4 big, self-paced units. All work in each unit would be due at the end of each quarter of the semester. There would be no pointless discussion posts. Students could engage with the material at their own pace and not have to worry about getting everything done by a midnight deadline on Friday or Sunday like is usually the case. Depending on the subject of the course, I would probably have quizzes and one test in each unit. All tests would only be over the content in a single unit, though the 2nd and 4th tests would be called the midterm and the (non-comprehensive) final. I'm still a student so right now I care more about how much less stressful non-comprehensive finals are than how much a student remembers about all the material in the course. As I get older, this feeling might change.

I am pro online class! (Pixabay)

Gen. Ed. Review

Since I'm a senior, my education here is nearly complete so I can speak from a lot of experience. If I had to pick one word to describe my Gen. Ed. experience here at OU it would be "thorough". Not only have I taken many Gen. Ed. courses but these courses have come from many different subjects. I've taken English classes like Fiction and Expository Writing. I've taken Spanish classes (3 semesters). I've a taken journalism class, an Information Science class, Chemistry (2 semesters), Zoology, Physics, Business Calculus, Intro to Native American studies, History of the American Musical Theatre and this class, Mythology and Folklore (and probably even more that I can't think of off the top of my head). Basically, I've done a little bit of everything. My education has been very well-rounded and I like that. It's cool to be very proficient in one subject. In fact, I know a lot about psychology, which is my major. However, I think it's even cooler to also know a little bit of everything. I can talk to you about Broadway musicals or tell you how to say something in Spanish (most of the time) or discuss how hormones work or explain to you what Title IX really means or tell you about fascinating psychology experiments or psychological phenomena.

I think my Humanities classes have probably been my favorite classes to take outside of my major. Mythology and Folklore has definitely been one of my very favorites. I also really enjoyed History of the American Musical Theatre. I got to watch several shows throughout the semester and lots of clips of shows. I loved my Fiction class during my very first semester at OU. My professor was British, I loved it any time she said "Harry Potter," and I really liked all the stories we read. I wouldn't change anything about the Gen. Ed. program if I could. I think it allows students to get a broad base of knowledge in a wide range of subjects. Overall, I've been very happy with my college education as a whole.

I can't believe I'm going to graduate soon! (Wikimedia Commons)

College Writing Review

This post has special significance to me because I am a senior. I have four years of college writing under my belt from many different disciplines, even other languages! Here is a list of just a few classes I can think of off the top of my head that were writing intensive or where a written assignment was a big part of the class: Expository Writing, Fiction, Research Methods II, Intermediate Spanish, Women and Sports, and Mythology and Folklore. I'm sure I could think of more if I thought really hard.

But from these classes, I recognize three different "types" of writing: essay writing, scientific writing, and creative writing. Of all the classes I have taken, Expository Writing most helped my essay writing. I took this class my very semester here at OU and I'm SO glad I did. I saw huge improvements in my essays after just one semester. It is amazing how far your writing can come in a few months when you have an excellent instructor with a relatively small number of students to attend to. This was the last composition class I will probably take in my life and I'm so much the better for it.

Research Methods II is a psychology class (and I'm a psych major) that teaches you the basics of how to conduct research in psychology. Since I want to conduct research in graduate school, this class was an important one for me to take. At the end, you got to design and run your own experiment then (where it was most helpful to my scientific writing skills) write a research paper and present a poster to the class. I worked really hard on my research paper (it is probably still the longest one I have written to this day) and I ended up winning first prize in my class for my experiment. This was definitely one of my favorite writing experiences here at OU.

Finally, I come to my favorite class this semester: Mythology and Folklore! Obviously, the style of writing this class has helped me with most is creative writing. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback about my writing and it has honestly blown me away. Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be an author, but I didn't think I would be any good at it. This class has been a major confidence booster and I've learned a lot about myself as a writer and what my strengths and weaknesses are. I hope to continue to read literature that I love and write stories that other people like once this class is over.

Overall, I've had wonderful writing instruction here at OU and I think my writing has improved significantly in four years (even more so than it did in four years of high school). I owe many thanks to the awesome instructors who guided me and taught me how to be a better writer, including the instructor for this course, Laura Gibbs!

Writing with a pen, the way I like to write when I write for myself
(Wikipedia)