HONORS > HONORS 100
HONORS 100
This class was the start of the UW Honors Program for me. This pages includes my applications to the Honors Program as well as assignments for the course.
Dec 2009
Application essays for Interdisciplinary Honors program
“Good citizenship comes from good scholarship." What does this statement mean to you?
In a land far, far away, there is a small town. There have been great rainstorms, and deluges have swamped houses, huts, even the king’s castle. There is a young girl and her grandmother. They are neighbors to a wealthy family. The wealthy family was not quick enough to save their belongings from the flood. But the family knows they will be able to buy more, once they are settled again. The girl and her grandmother built their home on the highest hill. Their home never floods. The grandmother and the child see the wealthy family trying to light a fire. A spark jumps and twists away from the wood. The family is cold and has nowhere to go. The girl and her grandmother stand on the top of the hill and call out to the family, “Come! Stay in our home. We have food and beds for you.” The wealthy family begins to ascend the hill. The grandmother turns to the girl. “We must help when we can”, she says. The girl smiles and remembers, for she has heard this before. She has listened to her grandmother, to the cat, to the trees and wind, and they have all told her, “Be kind to all, be generous with good things, and you shall be happy,” The rich family arrives at the hilltop. They are grateful for shelter and food. They tell themselves that they will somehow repay the grandmother and her grandchild in the future. The hut is small, but warm, and the family’s children are content to read books by the fireplace. The grandmother and young girl wish they could learn to read. Moral:
Not everything important is learned in school; oftentimes we learn from other experiences. Having good values and morals does not always depend on education. What do you wonder about, ponder, or wish you knew more about that isn't within your intended field of study? Would you ever be willing to put everything else on hold to satisfy your curiosity? If my mind were a scrolling marquee, you might read a stream-of-consciousness: cats, divine beings, the afterlife, aliens, relativism, nature (why are people so lazy about conserving the environment?), ballet, ballroom dancing, musicals, traveling to Egypt, India, France, cooking, painting, parents, childhood, chocolate… Some of these I have experienced, others I have not. One thing that intrigues me is cooking. Eventually, I would like to become a good cook. I have accumulated a number of recipes and ideas but I have not had time to actually cook. Attending culinary school would be fascinating and is a path I would like to follow. Good food is essential, universal, and everyone understands it. I want to make good food. But I am not willing to put everything on hold to learn more about it. I would like to say that I am passionate, impulsive, bold enough to interrupt my current lifestyle. But like most, I am too careful and stay with the familiar. I am a pragmatic person and I am caught up in the world’s rush: fast, busy, clear-cut, concise. It is easy to start living an almost frantic lifestyle with the mindset of fitting in as much as you can into a day. To stop everything, even for only a moment, ruins the flow of the world. I would like to slow down and occasionally punctuate my life with something new, but it is simply not practical. How would I re-enter my original world anyways? I would be behind. Can I see myself attending culinary school? No, not right now. In the future, maybe. It is a possibility, but only because it would be part of my plans and would not interrupt my life. |
Autumn 2010
Interdisciplinary Dictionary assignment from Honors 100
Interdisciplinary Dictionary assignment from Honors 100
Metacognition: thinking about thinking
Inattentional blindness: not seeing things in plain sight because you are focusing on another aspect of the situation
Value: something that people find significant in their lives; is different for everyone; can have varying degrees
Cohort: A group of people who share some experience or demographic trait in common, especially that of being the same age (an age cohort). (sciences) -OR- a Roman military unit of 600 soldiers, a tenth of a legion, commanded by tribunes. (military)
Intrapersonal: interactions between members within a group and the resultant influence on individual members. -OR- Communication a person has with him or herself (e.g. self-talk).
Multipdisciplinary: the coordinated application of several academic disciplines or subjects, in order to achieve a common goal.
Creative: one who is creative; especially : one involved in the creation of advertisement (noun) -OR- marked by the ability or power to create (adj)
Patterns: The (possible or necessary) way in which elements of language combine to form larger units (English) -OR-
An equivalence class associated with a special kind of relation defined on functions. (Computing) -OR- Form or shape used to make a mould such as for an inlay or partial denture. (Medicine)
Learn: English: possibly a reduced and altered form of Scottish McLaren . (Names & Places) -OR- Commit formulaic information, or a passage of prose or verse, to memory, so that it can be repeated. (Mythology and Folklore) -OR-
Impart knowledge to, teach. (English Language Reference)
Blog: A publicly accessible journal maintained on the Web by an individual or group. -OR- A device useful for reflective writing.
Sanity vs insanity: lack of knowledge of right vs wrong; not determined by medical diagnosis, but is simply a legal term
Failure: omission of occurrence or performance; a state of inability to perform a normal function; a fracturing or giving way under stress
Blame: to find fault with; to hold responsible
Allusion: an implied or indirect reference especially in literature
Humanism: a devotion to the humanities
Rebirth: a new or second birth; a spiritual regeneration
Underworld: the place of departed souls: Hades; earth (archaic); the side of the earth opposite to one (antipodes); a social sphere below the level of ordinary life <the town's seedy underworld>; especially : the world of organized crime
Reliability: the quality or state of being reliable; the extent to which an experiment, test, or measuring procedure yields the same results on repeated trials
Fate: the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do; an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end
Entertainment: the act of entertaining (archaic); employment (archaic); amusement or diversion provided especially by performer or something diverting or engaging
Model: This is a term which has been given a wide variety of different meanings by sociologists. In some cases it has been used as a synonym for theory (Politics and social science) -OR- A positive reproduction or cast made from an impression of an object (Medicine) -OR- To plan or form after a pattern
Inattentional blindness: not seeing things in plain sight because you are focusing on another aspect of the situation
Value: something that people find significant in their lives; is different for everyone; can have varying degrees
Cohort: A group of people who share some experience or demographic trait in common, especially that of being the same age (an age cohort). (sciences) -OR- a Roman military unit of 600 soldiers, a tenth of a legion, commanded by tribunes. (military)
Intrapersonal: interactions between members within a group and the resultant influence on individual members. -OR- Communication a person has with him or herself (e.g. self-talk).
Multipdisciplinary: the coordinated application of several academic disciplines or subjects, in order to achieve a common goal.
Creative: one who is creative; especially : one involved in the creation of advertisement (noun) -OR- marked by the ability or power to create (adj)
Patterns: The (possible or necessary) way in which elements of language combine to form larger units (English) -OR-
An equivalence class associated with a special kind of relation defined on functions. (Computing) -OR- Form or shape used to make a mould such as for an inlay or partial denture. (Medicine)
Learn: English: possibly a reduced and altered form of Scottish McLaren . (Names & Places) -OR- Commit formulaic information, or a passage of prose or verse, to memory, so that it can be repeated. (Mythology and Folklore) -OR-
Impart knowledge to, teach. (English Language Reference)
Blog: A publicly accessible journal maintained on the Web by an individual or group. -OR- A device useful for reflective writing.
Sanity vs insanity: lack of knowledge of right vs wrong; not determined by medical diagnosis, but is simply a legal term
Failure: omission of occurrence or performance; a state of inability to perform a normal function; a fracturing or giving way under stress
Blame: to find fault with; to hold responsible
Allusion: an implied or indirect reference especially in literature
Humanism: a devotion to the humanities
Rebirth: a new or second birth; a spiritual regeneration
Underworld: the place of departed souls: Hades; earth (archaic); the side of the earth opposite to one (antipodes); a social sphere below the level of ordinary life <the town's seedy underworld>; especially : the world of organized crime
Reliability: the quality or state of being reliable; the extent to which an experiment, test, or measuring procedure yields the same results on repeated trials
Fate: the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do; an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end
Entertainment: the act of entertaining (archaic); employment (archaic); amusement or diversion provided especially by performer or something diverting or engaging
Model: This is a term which has been given a wide variety of different meanings by sociologists. In some cases it has been used as a synonym for theory (Politics and social science) -OR- A positive reproduction or cast made from an impression of an object (Medicine) -OR- To plan or form after a pattern
Dec 2010
Honors 100 Final Exam
Interdisciplinary experiential education is important because it allows us to see a single issue in multiple ways. This can provide us with a better understanding of the issue, which is always useful. Understanding something well can help with finding: a better solution to a problem, more creative ideas to add to a project, more experiences to our lives, and more knowledge to add to our wisdom.
Within my classes at UW so far, I have used interdisciplinary thinking quite frequently, which has helped to develop ideas from narrow to more broad topics that all end up relating to each other. For example, in my humanities class, “Celluloid Myth: Puttin’ on the Rex”, we study modern films and analyze how ancient Greco-Roman myths are portrayed in them. This study is done from the approach of a classicist (myth part), a dramatist (film part), and myself, as a student still learning. From this class, I have been able to see how different scholars think. I now am able to use their ways of thinking, either by one single way or by multiple ways, to analyze everyday occurrences.
For example, the mundane topic of sleep, one of my favorite things to do, can be analyzed in an infinite number of ways. One of the first ideas about sleep that might pop into a…
Teenager’s head is: Sleep is good, but I often am deprived of it.
Teacher’s head is: Students should not sleep in class.
Doctor’s head is: The optimal amount of sleep is eight hours.
Classicist’s head is: This is one of the ways that many mythical characters
Philosopher’s head is: What is sleep? What is life? What is reality?
Technology person’s head is: Sleep is the state in which a computer or other electronic device is not completely shut down, but does cannot function fully.
Psychologist’s head is: Sleep can lead to dreams, which might be interpreted (by Freudian school of thought) as unconscious thoughts, desires, and feelings.
However, even within these categories of professionals, roles, etc in society, there are differing opinions. For example, psychologists say that the function of sleep might be for restoration, survival, memory consolidation, a combination of the aforementioned reasons, or all three reasons. This example of “sleep” demonstrates how ordinary things can be seen in interdisciplinary ways.
Non-ordinary things can also be viewed this way. For example, the Gulf Oil Spill. This is a major problem that many people from many different fields are trying to solve. Marine biologists study how natural bacteria might be able to degrade the oil. Engineers study how probes and other technology can take oil samples. Journalists tell the world what happened and can portray the issue in different lights, depending on how the articles are worded. A historian in the future might write about it and be able to connect how it affected the world 20 years later. However, it is not 20 years later, and we still are dealing with the Gulf Oil Spill’s effects. But perhaps in the future, we will read in textbooks how it was solved through interdisciplinary collaboration and see how beneficial interdisciplinarity work and study is to the world.
Honors 100 Final Exam
Interdisciplinary experiential education is important because it allows us to see a single issue in multiple ways. This can provide us with a better understanding of the issue, which is always useful. Understanding something well can help with finding: a better solution to a problem, more creative ideas to add to a project, more experiences to our lives, and more knowledge to add to our wisdom.
Within my classes at UW so far, I have used interdisciplinary thinking quite frequently, which has helped to develop ideas from narrow to more broad topics that all end up relating to each other. For example, in my humanities class, “Celluloid Myth: Puttin’ on the Rex”, we study modern films and analyze how ancient Greco-Roman myths are portrayed in them. This study is done from the approach of a classicist (myth part), a dramatist (film part), and myself, as a student still learning. From this class, I have been able to see how different scholars think. I now am able to use their ways of thinking, either by one single way or by multiple ways, to analyze everyday occurrences.
For example, the mundane topic of sleep, one of my favorite things to do, can be analyzed in an infinite number of ways. One of the first ideas about sleep that might pop into a…
Teenager’s head is: Sleep is good, but I often am deprived of it.
Teacher’s head is: Students should not sleep in class.
Doctor’s head is: The optimal amount of sleep is eight hours.
Classicist’s head is: This is one of the ways that many mythical characters
Philosopher’s head is: What is sleep? What is life? What is reality?
Technology person’s head is: Sleep is the state in which a computer or other electronic device is not completely shut down, but does cannot function fully.
Psychologist’s head is: Sleep can lead to dreams, which might be interpreted (by Freudian school of thought) as unconscious thoughts, desires, and feelings.
However, even within these categories of professionals, roles, etc in society, there are differing opinions. For example, psychologists say that the function of sleep might be for restoration, survival, memory consolidation, a combination of the aforementioned reasons, or all three reasons. This example of “sleep” demonstrates how ordinary things can be seen in interdisciplinary ways.
Non-ordinary things can also be viewed this way. For example, the Gulf Oil Spill. This is a major problem that many people from many different fields are trying to solve. Marine biologists study how natural bacteria might be able to degrade the oil. Engineers study how probes and other technology can take oil samples. Journalists tell the world what happened and can portray the issue in different lights, depending on how the articles are worded. A historian in the future might write about it and be able to connect how it affected the world 20 years later. However, it is not 20 years later, and we still are dealing with the Gulf Oil Spill’s effects. But perhaps in the future, we will read in textbooks how it was solved through interdisciplinary collaboration and see how beneficial interdisciplinarity work and study is to the world.