Sadie Van den Bogaerde 

Honors 100 BA 

11/25/19 

Assignment #6: Autumn Quarter Reflection 

This Autumn Quarter felt like it passed no time at all, but looking back on my first 
assignment for Honors 100, I realized how much has changed and how much I’ve learned. 
My fall quarters are especially busy (and fun) because of my involvement in Husky 
Marching Band, and this year with a heavy class load it’s been very easy for me to become 
caught up in everything going on without ever stopping to take a breath. Although I feel 
like I’ve had no free time at all this quarter, I’ve found that I’ve been dedicating a lot more 
of my energy into maintaining physically and mentally healthy practices. I think that 
because of this, I don’t feel as burned out as I usually do by Week 10, which is an 
unexpected positive that I’ll be trying to achieve in future quarters. I’m aware that I 
typically have a bad habit of disregarding my mental health and burying myself in 
schoolwork, so in usual fashion all of my initial goals this quarter were academic. 
However, I’ve been successfully maintaining a regular schedule of going to the gym, even 
when it’s late or I’m tired or stressed about schoolwork. Without fail, I always feel less 
stressed, more focused and happier after going to the gym and it’s always been worth the 
one fewer hour I have to do homework. I’ve also been developing better sleep habits 
which has been going a long way for my mental health.  

Something that has surprised me about my first quarter in Honors is my 

heightened awareness of the different teaching and resulting learning processes within 
Honors classes versus outside. I’ve known since I applied to Honors that the class style 
would be very different from the classes typical of a 40,000 person university, but I didn’t 
expect to be so conscious of the different ways I’m learning in each setting. I’ve found that 
I’m even able to apply honors-styles of learning to my larger, general science classes, 
which has been hugely beneficial.  

During my very first quarter at UW, last fall, I remember being surprised by the 
ease in which I found communities within such a huge student body. I am still surprised by 
the networks of friends I’ve made who know other friends of mine, who know people in 
my department or in groups I’m involved with. It’s been a very pleasant surprise to find 
overlapping friend and peer groups, and I look forward to further developing communities 
in my major and in Honors. I know that becoming more involved in the Honors community 
will be a fantastic endeavor this year (and beyond) because I would like to further 
investigate that way that interdisciplinary lines are drawn between topics of interest to 
me. In the Honors course I’ve taken this quarter, every time we analyze a piece of poetry 
or composition, everyone has vastly different interpretations because all of my peers are 
from different academic backgrounds. These different ideas and ways of thinking are 
fascinating to me, and I look forward to broadening my own own viewpoint by taking 
interesting courses and learning from my very intelligent peers and their diverse 
perspectives.  

By the end of my first year in Honors, I hope to achieve a feeling of deeper 

involvement within the Honors community. I don’t think this will be very difficult at all, 
given the many friendships I’ve already made in the Honors 100 and 345 courses this 
quarter. I would also like to become involved in some of the student leadership in Honors 
and will definitely be looking into these opportunities once my Autumn Quarter mayhem 
dies down. By the end of my time at UW, I hope to have found a clearer understanding of 
my abilities and where I can most effectively direct my skills and knowledge. Though this 
feels like a broad and vague statement to make, I’m very conscious of my current doubts 
regarding my goals and future. I don’t know if I’ll be admitted to medical school, or if I’ll 
even want to attend medical school after my undergraduate years. But I trust that by the 
end of my undergraduate career, I’ll have a clearer sense of where to focus my energy, 
whether that's in the medical field, marine sciences, or somewhere else entirely. I believe 
that the values I’m learning in the Honors Program, such as reflection, self-inquiry and 
developing an interdisciplinary perspective, will help me to navigate these doubts and 
reach greater clarity.