What have been some of your favourite classes at smith? - an incoming first year
This is hard! Whenever someone asks me this question, myimmediate response is, “Well do you have forty five minutes?” So the shortversion:
SOC 226: SociologicalPerspectives on Power and Privilege in American Education with Tina Wildhagen (Fall 2014)
This class blew my mind. We had so many interestingdiscussions, with my classmates coming from sociology, psychology, education,SWAG, and other backgrounds enriching the discussion. The most memorablediscussion we had was talking about what it means to be “smart,” and what thatmeans in the context of Smith. For example: one student starts their paper two weeks aheadof time and goes to office hours, uses the Jacobson Center for Writing, andrewrites several drafts before finalizing the paper she ultimately turns in. Anotherstudents writes the paper the night before it’s due. They both get A’s. Who is “smart?”Tina Wildhagen is also an incredibly smart human being, and designed a reallywell-rounded, though-provoking curriculum. She also seemed to know when theclass would benefit most from watching clips of Portlandia (which actually demonstrated some of her points to atee) and seeing photos of her daughter before her lecture.
SWG 222: Gender, Lawand Policy with Carrie Baker (Fall 2014)
First off, Carrie Baker is one of the most amazing andinteresting people you will ever meet. She’s a lawyer with real worldexperience, and was at one point the face of the fight for over-the-counterPlan B (ask her about it). She’s writes for Ms.Magazine and her area of research is currently around sex-trafficking. I tookIntro to SWG with her, so I was already a dedicated member of the Carrie Bakerfan club when I took this class. I really enjoyed learning the history of women’slegal status in the United States, and it was one of those classes with so manymoments where I just went, “Wow they really leave out A LOT in high schoolhistory classes.” It was also a really interesting experience to apply laws andcourt cases we were learning to hypothetical legal situations.
WEX 100: EducatingWomen – An Introduction (Fall 2013)
This class is the intro class for the Women’s EducationConcentration, one of the newer concentrations Smith offers. It was seven different lecturers from different departments, allgiving their perspectives on different aspects of women’s education, fromsingle-sex education to Title IX to issues faced in the developing world. This class incorporated a lot of history,which I couldn’t get enough of. This class was also how I was first exposed toCarrie Baker, and other professors who I would later take classes with. WEX 100was a one credit class that met once a week for the first half of the semester,and had very minimal work and readings.
ARX 141: What I Foundin the Archives (Spring 2014)
This class is the intro class for the ArchivesConcentration, which Carrie Baker has repeatedly tried to have me apply for,and I always wonder why I don’t (it’s because of the practicum requirementwhich I don’t really want to pursue). Structured similarly to WEX 100, thespeakers were usually guest lecturers from the area or the five colleges. Theclass included a lecture on cemeteries as archives, and a talk about Wikipediaas a new archive (and how little women are represented there). I love love lovethe Sophia Smith Collection, so I was more than happy to use that as a resourcefor my final paper for this class, which requires you to rather simply look atan object from an archive (there are some other local archives you can alsouse). Again, one credit class that met once a week for the first half of thesemester, and had very minimal work and readings.
SOC 404: Special Studies with Nancy Whittier (Spring 2015)
I must admit I was the only student in this class, yet I got so, so much out of it. As I’ve talked about before when I’ve discussed my research, it’s so valuable to be able to have an ongoing dialogue with a professor who really respects your ideas and is excited about them. I had lunch with Nancy last week and we talked about expanding my project into a thesis, which I will lay the groundwork for when I come back in the spring. Doing sustained research and writing a lengthy paper, even on a subject not directly related to the career I see myself heading toward, is such an important experience I’m glad Smith is affording me, and is truly gratifying.
