Today I bring to you a guest post from a year 1 History Major on HY2237/GEK2000. Something I did many years ago haha! Enjoy!
Hello!
Last semester I took HY2237 (The US: From Settlement to
Power) as one of my history mods. At that point in time I hadn’t quite decided
on my major yet but figured that it would be a wise choice to attempt a
level-2000 history mod, albeit last sem being my first ever semester as an FASS
student, since I was about 3/4 sure I would major in history.
Like any other mod, there were areas where I enjoyed it and
areas that I didn’t. In essence, I thoroughly enjoyed the syllabus and the
content that was taught. It was really interesting for me and I guess it was a
great insight to the history of a nation we would undoubtedly consider a great
power today. For me, the part on slavery and the unabated discrimination of the
Blacks had the greatest impact on me as we read about how they were tortured
and abused just because of the mere colour of the skin. I quite enjoyed writing
essays for this mod, although I didn’t score very well for either of them. We
had 2 essays - the first was for mid-terms where the question was on the rights
of women, Native Americans, and African Americans (Tip: I have a gut feeling
the content of the question for mid-terms doesn’t ever change), and the second
was a take-home assignment about African-Americans. For which, I scored a B for
both.
What I didn’t like about the mod though, was the tutorials.
Class part was 20% and for someone who doesn’t like nor has the habit of
speaking during classes, it was a huge struggle for me. And perhaps if I
actually bothered to contribute to the class, my overall grade might have
improved by one notch. I didn’t find the tutorial classes very helpful except
for giving me bits and pieces of extra content which I could’ve just dug out by
myself when I read the readings during my own time. But I guess there is a
point of having tutorials and class parts to train us in the future, and I’m
still trying to see the value in that.
In the end, I got a B+ for the mod. Although for someone who
really loves history, I would’ve wished to get at least an A- for the mod, but
I guess I’m contented with the B+ and shall use it to motivate myself to work
harder to get better grades in the future. Especially for my history mods.
Cheers!
