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I knew when I started attending Thomas More College that I would major in literature. However, I did fairly well with both the philosophy and the political science segments of the Humanities course, and probably could have majored in either of those. Dr. Virginia, one of the political science professors, particularly liked my writing: one of my papers, I believe on Livy’s Early History of Rome, came back with a grade of A++ and a note saying it made her very happy and she thought other students would benefit from reading my paper. I let her make copies of it, and sure enough another student came up to me later and said my paper was very helpful. I’m still a bit bemused by that, as I never thought that essay topic was difficult in the first place, but I’m sure there were other works we studied, particularly in philosophy, when I would’ve benefitted from reading some other students’ papers.
And it’s not like I was some political science genius or never had difficulty with it, either. The one time I made an effort to start writing a Humanities paper early, the topic was about Cicero’s use of imagery in The Republic to convey his political ideas. I sat down at 9 PM to start writing my paper, and five hours later, after not getting anywhere, I finally wrote “this is a fucking stupid question,” and only as I went on to explain why it was stupid did I figure out how to address it after all. (I went back and deleted that opening afterward.) Still, I did well enough through sophomore year that Dr. Virginia assumed I would be a political science major, and was quite taken aback when she mentioned this to her husband Dr. Glenn, one of the literature professors, and he explained that no, I was going to study literature. Later, during my senior year, as my one elective I took Dr. Virginia’s course on the American federal tradition, and it was probably the single hardest course I took at TMC.
Still, I might have actually done better at political science. Dr. Glenn was always pushing me to go deeper with my analysis in literature, and I feel that in the end I came up short. I did well enough in my junior project about Yeats, although I think even then there was some commentary that I could have put some more thought into understanding his poetry. My senior thesis was on the nature of the hero, and I earned a B (maybe B+), again because I hadn’t pursued my ideas thoroughly enough and I also relied too much on a particular source instead of contrasting multiple sources. Although that’s still a respectable grade, I was dissatisfied with my own work and felt I had let my professors down as well. I still have my thesis (along with many of my other essays), but I haven’t had the heart to look at it again since I first got it back with the grade and comments.
Ultimately, my experience at TMC proved similar to my high school experience: as the work load grew heavier and more was demanded of me, I staggered a bit and balked a little at carrying so much. I had good grades overall, but they slipped some by senior year, and I ended up feeling I could have and should have done better than I did. It was similar in another respect, that I had no interest in researching or applying for graduate school. I did end up taking the GRE so that I’d have that done if I did decide I wanted to pursue graduate studies. However, all I really wanted to do in senior year was finish and have another break from school. So the third similarity was that I had no clear direction or goal beyond completing my bachelor degree.
In choosing to study at TMC, I had also made a deliberate choice of focusing on my interests, literature and writing, rather than finding something arguably more practical. Part of TMC’s philosophy of education, too, was the traditional understanding of a liberal arts degree being about completing oneself as a person, becoming well-rounded; if you just wanted a job, you should go to trade school (or start working), and if you wanted a professional career, that’s what graduate school was for. I understood that philosophy when I started at TMC, and I agreed with it. However, I was myopic, focusing only on the short-term goal of completing my education and not thinking hard about what I would do afterward. By senior year, what I would do afterward became a very worrisome open question for which I had no answers.
And it’s not like I was some political science genius or never had difficulty with it, either. The one time I made an effort to start writing a Humanities paper early, the topic was about Cicero’s use of imagery in The Republic to convey his political ideas. I sat down at 9 PM to start writing my paper, and five hours later, after not getting anywhere, I finally wrote “this is a fucking stupid question,” and only as I went on to explain why it was stupid did I figure out how to address it after all. (I went back and deleted that opening afterward.) Still, I did well enough through sophomore year that Dr. Virginia assumed I would be a political science major, and was quite taken aback when she mentioned this to her husband Dr. Glenn, one of the literature professors, and he explained that no, I was going to study literature. Later, during my senior year, as my one elective I took Dr. Virginia’s course on the American federal tradition, and it was probably the single hardest course I took at TMC.
Still, I might have actually done better at political science. Dr. Glenn was always pushing me to go deeper with my analysis in literature, and I feel that in the end I came up short. I did well enough in my junior project about Yeats, although I think even then there was some commentary that I could have put some more thought into understanding his poetry. My senior thesis was on the nature of the hero, and I earned a B (maybe B+), again because I hadn’t pursued my ideas thoroughly enough and I also relied too much on a particular source instead of contrasting multiple sources. Although that’s still a respectable grade, I was dissatisfied with my own work and felt I had let my professors down as well. I still have my thesis (along with many of my other essays), but I haven’t had the heart to look at it again since I first got it back with the grade and comments.
Ultimately, my experience at TMC proved similar to my high school experience: as the work load grew heavier and more was demanded of me, I staggered a bit and balked a little at carrying so much. I had good grades overall, but they slipped some by senior year, and I ended up feeling I could have and should have done better than I did. It was similar in another respect, that I had no interest in researching or applying for graduate school. I did end up taking the GRE so that I’d have that done if I did decide I wanted to pursue graduate studies. However, all I really wanted to do in senior year was finish and have another break from school. So the third similarity was that I had no clear direction or goal beyond completing my bachelor degree.
In choosing to study at TMC, I had also made a deliberate choice of focusing on my interests, literature and writing, rather than finding something arguably more practical. Part of TMC’s philosophy of education, too, was the traditional understanding of a liberal arts degree being about completing oneself as a person, becoming well-rounded; if you just wanted a job, you should go to trade school (or start working), and if you wanted a professional career, that’s what graduate school was for. I understood that philosophy when I started at TMC, and I agreed with it. However, I was myopic, focusing only on the short-term goal of completing my education and not thinking hard about what I would do afterward. By senior year, what I would do afterward became a very worrisome open question for which I had no answers.
