Reading+Responses+Due+908

My Freshman Year Section 1 Response

After reading the first two chapters of My Freshman Year I found that Rebekah Nathan’s study of college freshman interesting and fun to read. For me, I was more interested when Nathan compared and contrasted college students from the past and college students now. One of the observations that Nathan made that I found interesting was that college students were both studying and socializing less. Looking at my experience as a freshman so far, I always assumed that people socialized more than studied or vice versa. I didn’t think that both socializing and studying have both declined. Another thing that I found interesting was that in Nathan’s study she found that mostly all of the people she interviewed were a part of extracurricular activities. At Bloomsburg I have met a bunch of people and all of them are either a part of a club or a sports team. I would like to know more about why the people she interviewed were a part of clubs and sports. In today’s world going to college and getting a degree isn’t enough to get a job. Part of the reason people join clubs and volunteer is to help buffer up their resumes to get a better chance at a job. I want to know if that was a big contributing factor to joining clubs or if it was a smaller one. Overall I thought this section was a good read.

On Ethnography Section 1 Response

Unlike My Freshman Year, I did like this reading very much. I found most of the stuff that the authors wrote go over my head. I read the words but I didn’t really understand the bigger concepts. The one thing I found interesting in this section was when the authors talked about ethnographers studying language and literacy and comparing it to a person learning to juggle. I enjoyed reading about how ethnographers have to find patterns in language and in literacy in order to full understand and learn the different cultures. I would like to know more about how ethnographers find these patterns and how easy it is for them. In the past I have read about people and how our minds work. One thing that popped in my mind when I read about using patterns to understand culture was that our minds unconsciously search for patterns. We look for repetition, sequences, and order, in order to remember things easier. I think it would be interesting to find out more about the patterns ethnographers find in language. I know that when I took Spanish class I looked for patterns in the way sentences were written so I could apply them to my sentences. That’s basically all I got out of this reading the rest I found boring so I didn’t follow it very well.