A Reflection

Classes ended yesterday for me. It's a little funny to hear about everyone doing midterms back home, but not all that funny because I have to worry about finals. During my last couple of classes this week I was reflecting back on the program and why I came and what I expected out of it and what I actually found and I thought I would share.

Honestly, I did not come on this program for the academics. I care about human rights in a disconnected, I want to help people kind of way, not exactly in a I want to study this for the rest of my life kind of way. I figured I would get an ok academic experience at Wits, but honestly knew nothing about the school. When it comes down to it, I decided to go on this program because I wanted to experience a different culture (where I could speak English) that wasn't a country I had already experienced (ie England) and I really liked the internship aspect of the program. In my mind I figured that putting a semester-long internship in South Africa on my resume would look really good. And I had been wanting to do an interesting internship in a different sort of environment. I also wanted a study abroad experience that would give me a different academic experience than what I could find at Vassar or on a Vassar program where basically you were doing the same sort of classes, just in a different location. Very honestly, those were basically the only reasons I went. And there's the fact that sometimes I just like to be spontaneous. Not in the sense that I just packed my bags one day and left, but in the sense that this was not the most thought-out venture I have ever committed myself to.

Coming out of this program though, I actually really enjoyed my classes, surprisingly enough. I obviously didn't love everything about every class, but I enjoyed aspects of every class, even the core law class which was pretty awful for us not studying law. Through interaction with students here I feel like I have a much better sense of world politics in a way that I have never connected to at home. This could be because it seems like students here are much more politically aware. I feel like Americans sometimes have less of a sense of what is going on around them. Maybe this is because we are a super power and feel like we don't need to worry less about smaller states, which is a really bad excuse. I have gotten an even better sense of how other countries view the States (which is not well) and why this is. It makes me want to figure out a way of changing the world's perspective of the States, not sure how I could accomplish this though. Thoughts? haha

My last psychosocial class was basically forty minutes of all us gushing about how it was one of the best classes we have ever had. Not only were the teachers awesome at leading discussion, but the variety of views and opinions in the class made discussion really interesting. Not to mention that we read some amazing theorists on subjects pertaining to colonization, entanglement and how teaching can be used as a way to get out of these negative societal relationships. It felt like a really good sociological/education class. We also got to have really great talks about things like language, something I wrote about a couple of posts ago, which (Fiona pointed out in class) could never have happened in the States.

There were of course a lot of frustrating aspects of the program. I mean, it has been pointed out quite a few times by different writers that working with human rights, while important, often feels, I don't know, like you are trying to build this sandcastle, but you are building it right near the water and the waves keep washing most of it away. It often feels pointless. Of course, I'm sure that when it feels most pointless it is most important to keep fighting. Plus, it isn't like there have only been failures trying to get people equal rights. It just is a little bit of an uphill struggle.

So ultimately I feel like I was possibly the least academically committed to this program when coming here, but I got a lot more out of it academically than I was expecting. I feel a lot more interested in the international aspect of politics, even though I have also gotten a sense that the level of state inequality is just one of those international aspects which will keep the strong states (what up US) from respecting the international system. I also would love to further explore how things like the media we are presented with can influence the way we interact with each other, positively and negatively. This program hasn't taught me things like how to write a better paper, honestly I feel like paper writing is approached so differently here and plagiarism is not something you just hear about occasionally. We got back our law papers and she told us that she found that 1/3 of the papers had plagiarized. 1/3! I will not get over that. But anyways, the things I have learned within my individual classes I feel very confident in my knowledge of, which I am really grateful for. Sometimes I feel like I get out of a class and I know I learned a lot of important things, but I wouldn't really be able to give you a comprehensive sense of the class without looking at a former essay or my class notes or something. I'm not really expecting to go on to study human rights further than this program, but I appreciate the human rights focus that has given me a different perspective on things such as politics, international relations, media etc. I feel like the best kind of academic experiences give students a range of different ways of encountering material. So ultimately, while I may have been a tad impulsive with this voyage into South Africa, I am ultimately really glad I decided to do it.

I am just four exams away from the end of this program. It doesn't feel like I've been here for four month. One month to go.