My experiences with being a member of PLA and taking HONOR 301H thus far have far exceeded my expectations. Coming in, I did not believe class would be as fun and interesting as it has been. Right off the bat, we were assigned to read Critical Thinking: An Introduction, and this book has helped me immensely in how I treat the information and opinions others share with me. One of the biggest things that I have learned is the importance of thoroughly evaluating the sources of any information I receive for their credibility. Every week, I also looked forward to our weekly Thursday news quiz. It was a great motivator for me to closely follow the news and keep up with what’s happening across the world.
Throughout the semester, we entered into many thought provoking discussions that have changed the way I look at issues. We also had a great variety of speakers, from Ambassador Dennis Jett and his talk about the Iran Nuclear Deal to Dr. Jonathan Marks and our discussion on ethics. Whenever I ask upperclassmen in the PLA about their favorite aspect of PLA, the most common response I get is the diversity of the members that make up each class. I myself have seen the benefit in having classmates who come from many different backgrounds. In every discussion and guest speaker lecture, my classmates have asked insightful questions and brought up counterpoints that I had never even imagined before. My classmates are truly unique and have many amazing experiences to share. I believe the biggest strength of the PLA is that it brings together so many diverse opinions and experiences, which help make discussions more fruitful and engaging.
As we approach the final week of classes, I have mixed feelings about how my bilingual education policy group has worked throughout the semester. While I absolutely love working with everyone in the group and we all work together cohesively, I wish the group had had a greater sense of urgency since the beginning of the semester so that we would not be forced to work as hard on the project at the end of the semester. In the beginning, when we first began to work on our policies, I was apprehensive about the laid-back attitude of most of my group members. They were okay with only brainstorming ideas and meeting with different people for the first two months of our project. While I recognized that brainstorming is important, I believed the end of the semester would come sooner than anyone expected. I tried to persuade my group to get as much done as we possibly could in the beginning of the semester, but my efforts were to no avail. Even though we eventually did begin delineating the details of our policy and everything has gone smoothly since, it would have served us better to have written our paper in phases as the semester progressed.
I have also noticed that our group dynamic improved after going on the Pittsburgh trip and learning about the elements of each of our personalities through the business chemistry presentation. Personally, I recognized that most of my team members were not guardians (which was my personality type). Therefore, I was able to tailor the way I approached each member and became more aware of how everyone behaved. In future group projects, I will definitely try to make hunches about the personality types of my group members and be more aware of the fact that they may have a different way of doing things than me.
Follow Us!