On My Decision to Take a Fifth Course

It is very likely that I will be committing Davidson suicide this semester in deciding to take five classes instead of the normal four.

As it so turns out, a class I wanted to take in the future will probably not be offered at Davidson following this semester. In the interest of learning so much the back of my head explodes from all the brain I've developed, I've decided I need to take this fifth course to ensure I get everything in.



I've heard horror stories about taking five classes from people who haven't taken five classes and I was discouraged (lightly) by my freshman adviser going into second semester. However, I have talked with a girl (who I should have been better friends with, we really would have gotten along quite well) who took five courses each semester for at least four semesters. She's a hard worker and very motivated, but said she managed it just fine.

What it takes for me to really succeed is for me to be really interested in what I'm working on and to feel like what I'm working on really means something to me or what I want to do in the future. This fifth course, Narratives and Conflict in the Middle East, is a course which I'm interested in on two levels: 1. the Middle East is exhilarating for me to learn about and is moving so quickly that I haven't lost interest in the events that continue to flow throughout the nations of the areas; and 2. this course places major emphasis on the films and writings that have been created around the conflicts, and, as a major cinephile and bibliophile, this only adds to my building interest in the course.

I borrowed DVD's from my professor's collection last semester (I had her for a Middle Eastern political history course), watching movies about characters in areas we were learning about in class. It allowed me to really understand better what the people may have been feeling. My Humanities professor, an art historian, told us many times that art seems to have a funny way of beating history to the changes society will see - artists seem to define and describe the conflicts and changes of a time period, often years before the writers do.

We will see how this fifth course goes, but I'm optimistic going into it and very ready to take 2013 by the horns.

However, be prepared for a follow-up post around March wherein I describe how much my life sucks.