Seriously. It seems like I drop off the LJ radar at least every six months. Though this time I feel that I have a decent excuse. Today is the last day of finals for the classes I’ve been taking for the last five weeks. Here’s the rundown:
Crime and Criminality: Exams done, grades in, got an A. This wasn’t all that interesting. It was mostly an overview of super-foundational criminology, and we didn’t really delve into any theory that I wasn’t already at least passingly familiar with from my studies in sociology. Not a bad class, and I suppose I picked up some interesting historical and modern-structural information. Also, it’s over with.
Minority Groups: Final paper turned in this morning, estimated grade is either an A or a very high B. As is the case with pretty much any class I’ve had with Dr. Fry, this one kicked butt. It was squarely focused on social identity construction which is a topic I already find pretty dang compelling. It also synergized quite well with the Social Stratification course I took last fall without rehashing all the material. The classes were great compliments to one another. We had some good discussion, and the texts we were working from were straight-up excellent. Also, we watched the film Crash and had some interesting discussions on the racial messages embedded there.
Contemporary Sociological Theory: Exam begins at 14:00 today, estimated grade is an A, probably a high one. My first complaint is that the class is mistitled. This was really a course on Modern Sociological Theory, rather than Contemporary Theory. We went from Comte and Durkheim to the disciples of Mead and Symbollic Interactionism. So no actual contemporary theory at all. That said, there was a lot of really good grounding in the historical roots of the field, and we did get to talk about Symbollic Interactionism which always gets me pumped. The text we had was serviceable, but not great. My other big complaint is that there was something about the professor’s teaching style that really turned me off (though by the end of the course I was warming to it, so it may not have been as big an issue if we’d had more than five weeks): no matter how interesting the material we were discussing was, I was always counting the minutes to get out of class. I felt myself bored by Mead, and that’s rather unusual.
Monday the new round of classes begins. I shall only be taking a single statistics class, so things should calm down a bit.
In unrelated news, my housing plans for the fall (beginning in mid-August) have fallen through. I am now somewhat scrambling to find somewhere to live. It’ll work out, Auburn is still in a rental housing glut after all, but it’s a hassle I didn’t really need and is going to force me to redevelop my budget again. Goody.
I haven’t been reading my friends list since my last post, so if there’s something you think I should have read (or would have enjoyed) you’re welcome to point to it. And, hopefully, I’ll be able to get back to posting daily or close to it. That’d be cool.
Thomas
Where’s that picture you were supposed to upload?
Going through my 3+ GB of digital photos has revealed that holding the camera means you don’t get to be in any pictures. I haven’t actually found one worth posting, sadly.
Thomas
Amusing.