FDOC

WOOO FDOC!!! (First day of classes) Today was the first day of ICS 200S, the capstone for the ICS major. After only one real ICS course, I am still a bit confused as to what this class is going to be about. There are only 18 of us. It’s a small class, and as a seminar, I expect that we will have some pretty in depth discussions. We started off the class introducing ourselves and filling out a map, coloring in where each person and their families were from, and where they have traveled or studied. North America was covered along with Europe and China, different parts of Africa were colored in and both Central and South America seemed to be popular places of study. I couldn’t believe that almost half the class had done some type of abroad experience in Argentina. Did I miss the bandwagon on this one? Should I be packing my bags for Buenos Aires this summer? (I hear the beaches are great!).

Our class is quite eclectic. Jim (Marcus) is from Sweeden, Johnny is from Alabama, Izzie is from Haiti and Ashley and Nathalie are both from Colombia. Charlie and I probably gave the least exciting presentation of everyone in the class. But maybe this will be a good thing. Maybe Charlie and I have a few things to learn from everyone. Although it does make me a bit nervous; will I have anything to contribute to our class discussions? I sure hope so.

The rest of the class was kind of overwhelming. We did a free association activity of terms that come to mind when we think of ICS. Everyone started blurting out words: identity, boundaries, and ethnicity were obviously some of the first buzz words that came up. Hmm… not like went spent too much time with those in ICS 125… or did we? The list went on. Words like NGOs, power, and colonization were added to the list. Development was one of the words that stood out to me. I don’t know too much about this topic but it seems interesting. Lastly, Marcy (our professor – She told us to call her Marcy) asked us to think about how these relate to place, as in location and how each of the terms is used in different disciplines. And so it was that we got our first assignment.

On the car ride home, Charlie and I talked about the list. We both felt a little overwhelmed but we came the conclusion, that we were okay with it. We discussed the terms that we thought were most relevant and since we are both Western Europe focuses and interested in History, we narrowed our list down a bit. I think it was a helpful activity to do on the first day. It kind of gave us an overview of all the topics we would be covering and helped spur my memory since its been quite a while since ICS 125.