Life Comes Full Circle

Finally I find myself on a little vacation, no deadlines, no studying, and actually some peace and quiet. I decided to take advantage of my free time to comment on an observation that I made recently. Sometimes life takes strange twists and turns, but through it all we evolve into the people we are. Sometimes it's amusing to observe the journey.

Last fall I was taking an economics class, comparative economics, which was my third economics class. While I find the subject of economics absolutely fascinating, many find it equally boring. While this class was a little challenging at times, I found the topic of comparative economics to be a very interesting one. Especially at a time when all of the economic systems appear to be the subject of debate. While I was fascinated by this class, I don't think the same was true for all of the students in my class.

I was surprised when, several weeks into the class, I got an email from my instructor asking me how I am studying for my classes. He appeared to be impressed with my grasp of the course materials. He asked if I could offer any advice that he could share with the other students to help them get the materials. After getting over the the initial ego boost, I thought about how I was studying and what advice I could offer. Really, I was doing little more than reading the assigned text chapters and then completing my assignments. I really didn't know how to reply, because I didn't want to reveal my totally, unsystematic, random method of studying. After giving it some thought I came to a conclusion, my success in this class was due to one thing; my interest in economics. Because I was interested in economics, I was absorbing every last bit of information throughout the class. Other students who were likely, (of course, wrongly so) under the impression that economics are boring and only a propeller head would actually enjoy something like this. I am fully aware of how difficult it can be to learn something if you have absolutely convinced yourself that what you are studying is completely stupid and irrelevant. And if I didn't know, I was about to find out.

My very next classes were Writing and Research, and Interpersonal Communications. If I got any ego boost from my economics class, it was about to disappear. First, I am not much of a fan of writing classes. I enjoy blogging and randomly writing when I feel like it. One huge advantage of recreational writing is that there is no deadline (as you can tell because it took me two months to complete this blog) and nobody is going to give me an “A” no matter how good I do. I am the happiest when I feel like my assignments have been perfected. So needless to say, I wasn’t exactly having a blast with my writing class.

My other class, Interpersonal Communications, was just slightly less interesting than studying supply and demand charts or laissez faire capitalism. I learned a few interesting and valuable things in this class, but I still think cleaning bathrooms instead of taking this class would have been a fair trade! I guess this must be where that “well rounded” thing comes in. Perhaps the most valuable thing I learned from this class is that it taught me to consider other people’s perspective. Maybe my economics classmates looked at economics the same way I looked at my writing class, “it’s just one of those things that you have to do in order to graduate”.

Even though I didn’t tremendously enjoy either of these classes, they taught me something valuable. Interpersonal Communications helped me understand how my economics classmates must have felt and why they were having difficulties in understanding the course materials. Because I was aware of this, I realized that if I can convince myself that I really am going to learn something in my Writing class and not hate it, I will probably do much better. It worked! I wrote a much-dreaded paper that turned out to be the paper that I am proudest of out of all the papers I have written since starting college. As I stated earlier, I love that feeling that comes from feeling like you have perfected something. For the first time I felt that way about a paper.

I just thought it was kind of funny how everything had come full circle. First, I couldn’t understand why anyone would not be interested in economics. Then, I start a writing class that I really had no interest in. At the same time I am taking a class that is teaching me to see things from other’s perspectives. Considering my writing class, I could now understand how my classmates must have felt about economics. Being aware of this undoubtedly helped me succeed in my writing class. Funny how life sometimes comes full circle!