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Sage Crawford-Herold

Professor Lee

FYS 146-04

10 December 2020

Reflection

Going into the fall semester, I was full of uncertainty and stress because it was my first semester

of college and we are in a global pandemic, Not to mention, we’re fully online. If I am to be honest, my

counselor told me to take this class because it fulfills three requirements, so I enrolled and got in. I had

no idea how important it was to take this class, not only did I learn about all the resources available on

campus, but also how important ethnic studies is for the world.

This semester, I learned the other side of history, the side of history the US has covered up or

neglected. It really opened my eyes and expanded my knowledge vastly. An example of this would be

Christopher Columbus, I was taught that he was an explorer and found the Americas and that he was this

great person when in fact wasn’t. He found America, but people were already here, for at least 15000

years. But they were different in so many ways, and easy to take advantage of, so that was exactly what

Columbus did, used them for the gain, and thought of the native indigenous people as slaves, and less than

him, all because they acted differently than what he had known. Another example of this would be the

Great Expansion westward and the Mexican-American War, they were taught separately but in fact, they

were hand in hand the same. I would say most people don’t know that Mexico used to control the west

coast and our first language was Spanish. We are not taught the other side of history because it makes the

US look bad and not strong. In the TED talk, we saw the danger of a single story.

This class has led to me having better conversations with my family. My family is very intelligent

on a lot of matters, so, for me contributing or conversing with them has made me closer with them. From
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the documentaries we watched in class, I was able to learn so much, and then adding the chapters from the

reading has expanded my knowledge of so many subjects. As a black person, I have learned a lot of our

history but never all the way to the colonial period to the extent we went into class. I thought the reading

logs were a great assignment because once you got the hang of them and the reading strategies, I was able

to almost understand a whole chapter using the reading log to break down the part I didn’t understand.

Until the class, I didn't realize the difference between HOT questions and low thinking questions. In other

words, my critical thinking has improved.

If I had not taken this class, I would have never known that race was a social construct that was

made up by white people as a way to separate black people from white people. My view on race has

changed during this semester; Biologically, we are the same race/species but seem to look different based

on climate and environmental impacts.

If I were to teach this class, I wouldn’t change much about the course. It was easy to follow the

class and was executed great. The discussions about each topic really helped to understand because you

were talking through the chapter and all it covered. This semester has been a crazy one, not only because I

am a freshman but the whole pandemic. My vision statement was general, I want to own an aquarium, so

in a way, I am closer to that goal because I finished this semester, but I don’t feel like I’ve made progress.

In closing, this class was fun, insightful, and opened my eyes to so many things and topics that I

can use for the rest of my life. I know this class has helped me for the future not only in college but in life

because I can use what I learned in this class and take it and use it for something else.