Final Reflection

Final Reflection This course, Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity, was the first humanities class I have taken in a long while, and the first I have taken at UW. After filling most of my schedule with STEM classes, I was nervous about taking a humanities course, and didn’t know what to expect. And right from the beginning, the interdisciplinary nature of the course presented a challenge to my learn-concepts-and-solve-problems way of thinking that is useful in STEM courses. Instead of understanding the material to solve problems, I learned that I had to understand the material to explore the context of the time and draw conclusions about women in ancient Greece and Rome. Through these new expectations, I adopted a new way of examining information and learned to recognize how the information reinforced or challenged gender roles. This class was especially important to me not only because it allowed me to exercise my analytical and contemplative skills, but also because it is an appropriate precursor to a study abroad program I will be participating in this summer. The topic and destination of the program is examining Rome’s self-image in Rome, Italy, so learning about women in Rome during this quarter has helped me immensely in learning about the basic historical context of Rome and the core values of ancient Romans. In fact, since the topic of the program is about how Rome saw itself and promoted its image to become an empire, my final project for this class was a paper on how the Vestal Virgins, who were members of a religious cult, represented Rome and how Rome wanted to see itself. Researching for the paper was a unique challenge, as I was used to researching scientific papers for data or physical conclusions, while for this project I was referencing papers by other scholars and using their points to prove my own. In the end, writing this paper allowed me to explore concepts like using evidence from writings to illustrate a point and using written reasoning to demonstrate a conclusion on the subject. This course did not only help me exercise my skills in the humanities, but it also built up my historical knowledge of the place i will be learning about and living in this summer.

Artifact attached: final paper on Vestal Virgins and the image of Rome ● Address challenges ○ Taking my first humanities course in college in between my other classes (all STEM) ○ Not my best subject by far ○ A different way of thinking: instead of understanding material to solve problems, it was understanding material to draw conclusions and explore the context of the time period being studied through the lens of women ○ Women’s studies: had never studied before, didn’t know what to expect ○ Learned a new way of looking at things and recognizing how they reinforced or challenged gender stereotypes/roles ● Highlight a theme from undergraduate experience ○ Next in “Sydney does new things and is worried about them but they turn out to be educating and actually kind of fun” ● Demonstrate thoughtful reflection ● What do you wish you’d known about this quarter at this time? ● What have you learned that has surprised you? ● What do you want your future self to remember about this moment? ● What I have accomplished during this quarter ○ Been able to exercise my analytical side; apply thoughtful analysis to historical content and be able to recognize the implications of different situations to the people living in that time ● Document and contextualize my undergraduate experience ○ Serve as a class to exercise analysis and also prepare me for the content and analysis I will have to do in my study abroad ○ Connect back to my artifact: i did a project on how Rome saw itself (or wanted to see itself) and that’s the topic of the study abroad ○ I will have a better basis in Roman knowledge and therefore my study abroad experience will be much more fulfilling and I will be able to enjoy my time there much more