CLASSES!

My mother recently told me that my great aunt Judy (hi!!) was curious about my classes here at Georgetown. To satisfy her curiosity and perhaps yours, here I detail my classes and what exactly I'm studying.

This semester, I am taking five courses that sum to fifteen credit hours. These courses are:

1. Intro to Ethics, taught by Nancy Sherman (and my TA is Karen Rice)
2. Advanced Spanish 1, taught by Ana Levenson
3. Intro to Language, co-taught by Sean Simpson and Caitlin Elizondo
4. History Focus: Early Modern Women, taught by Amy Leonard with TA Sylvia Mullins
5. Ignatius Seminar (Georgetown College first-year seminar) entitled Serving the Common Good, taught by Bette Jacobs

Today I finished my fourth week of classes, although I still have not had a full week. Georgetown eases its students into class: three days of classes the first week, four the second, and all five the third. In my case, however, and in the cases of my classmates for Intro to Ethics, we will have our first full week next week due to our professor's religion. Nancy Sherman observes the Jewish holidays, which happened to fall on our class days this year, so we did not have class on Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah. Despite this anomaly, I now have a fairly good idea of my class schedule and workload.

So far my favorite class has been my history class, which examines women in early modern Europe (roughly 1400 - 1789 C.E.). The professor is phenomenal, the material is highly interesting, and I'm thrilled that I was not required to buy any of the textbooks for the class. (God bless Lau's reserves system.) I have also greatly enjoyed my linguistics class (Intro to Language), which was a relieving discovery seeing as that is my major.

Now is a great time to explain: what is linguistics? "So how many languages do you speak?" is the first question any linguistics major will get. Coincidentally, I speak two, but polyglotism is not required to be a linguist. On the first day of class, my professor presented an excellent analogy: "To drive a car, you don't need to know what's going on under the hood. You just know how to drive it. To speak a language, you don't need to know how it works; you just know how to speak it. A linguist is to language what a car mechanic is to cars." It can be pretty complicated!

My ethics class has fairly interesting material, much to my pleasant surprise. Prior to coming to Georgetown, I had a less-than-favorable view of the study of ethics and philosophy as a field that dedicated itself to arguing. So far I've found that ethics, or at least at the intro level, is more about describing different schools of thought and questioning morality as a whole. As an added bonus, this class satisfies half of my core requirement in philosophy!

Having a Spanish class again is a nice familiarity. Unfortunately, this is also Georgetown, so I'm no longer the best student in my Spanish class. It's an adjustment for sure.

My seminar is about nonprofits and NGOs, and although it's had a slow start, I feel like we're really getting started now. We will have various guest speakers and even have the opportunity to go to a gala later in the semester! We will meet the former CEO of the Gates Foundation, and the former CEO of National Geographic. Our major project for the semester is a case study on a 501 (c) (3), and because of this class I actually know what that means! (Life Teen is a 501 (c) (3) as is the Girl Scouts and so many more!)

Overall, academics have pleasantly surprised me. Classes are efficient, covering vast ranges of material in just 50 minutes, and professors are generally pleasant. Three of my professors tell us to call them by their first names, much to my Georgian discomfort. (I still call all of my best friends' parents "Ms" and "Mr" despite being part of the family for years.) Southern manners are not something that leaves you quickly.

My grades are, as of yet, unknown! I have had very few assignments, and have no way of knowing my class averages. That reality is mildly terrifying for a Fulton County overachiever who could check her grades on Home Access any time she wanted in high school. It's my understanding that the first semester of college often destroys grades, so as long as I maintain a 3.0 GPA my first semester, I will not panic. (Parents—this is not my goal GPA. Do not panic or think I am lowering my standards!)

Here's to a good semester with good grades and lots of learning!