Hello all! My name is Rashmi and I鈥檓 a sophomore studying economics and politics! As part of my academic journey here at Scripps, I have been able to take fantastic classes in my majors as well as outside of them. In this blog, I want to highlight a class I enjoyed taking for my politics major and a class I enjoyed in general here at Scripps.
To start off with my politics class, I am currently taking an Introduction to Comparative Politics class at Pomona which is expanding my understanding of the world outside of the USA. Growing up in Northern California, I primarily learned about US history and government which made my viewpoint on the world very US-centric. An aspect I truly enjoy about my comparative politics class is that the class is focused mainly on other countries and their governments while keeping the US as more of a frame of reference in the background rather than the primary topic of the class. Through the class, I have learned about the different government structures in Latin America, the UK, and Southeast Asia as well as the difference between nation and state. Overall, I would say this class is a class you should take if you want a broader understanding of how other countries work even if you are not a politics major!
For my Scripps鈥� specific class, I enjoyed my CORE 3 class titled 鈥淢emory in Spain and Latin America.鈥� To begin with, I adore Professor Carmen Sanjuan-Pastor, the professor who taught this course! She is an incredibly well-spoken, kind, and helpful professor who made the end of the CORE sequence enjoyable through the interesting literature selections explored in class, the engaging conversations about my research project during office hours, and her care for her students as people outside of the classroom. Although the history of Spain and Latin America and memory formation during traumatic events, the main themes of the course, are outside my major areas, I still learned a lot of useful skills through my CORE 3 class ranging from forming a deeper understanding of how to read advanced literature to becoming more well-versed in global history in general. My favorite unit of the class was our exploration of the Spanish civil war since the literature we read, Dule Chac贸n鈥檚 The Sleeping Voice, concertized the emotions stored in memory in a tangible way that was easy to engage with. Even my final research project, an exploration of the New Song movement in Chile, made me analyze aspects of my life and how I think about revolution and the fight for freedom. I would highly recommend taking a class with Professor Pastor since you will learn so much about something you may have no prior experience in and get to connect with an incredibly knowledgeable human being.聽
Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing about my favorite classes! If you have any questions please feel free to email me at [email protected]. Have an amazing day wherever you are and as always stay ScrippsStrong!