Ellen Gregoire

Professor Ananda Spike

HUMA 1100
28 November 2016
Reflection
Humanities is an important subject and with the knowledge that it
entails I am now a more humble, well rounded, decent human being. Im
glad that I was able to take this course this semester, as it went along with
the other courses in my schedule. I was hesitant to take another humanities
course because this subject is not my favorite. I ended up enjoying the
course as you will understand throughout this reflection. In this course we
went over important issues such as Critical Thinking, Happiness and a Good
Life, Identity-Privilege and inequality, and Freedom, Responsibility and
Justice. Through these articles we were able to learn a lot, problem solve,
gain new perspective and form new ideas.
Our first subject was Critical Thinking and Interpreting Skill in
Humanities. My favorite articles from this section were We Are Our Values
and Reading in a Digital Age. Both articles were great and brought new
light into both these areas.
We Are Our Values focused on our values and important values
throughout the country and the world. We were able to reflect on our own
values and standards. I realized as we had discussions in class that what I
thought were important, were low on other peoples priorities. We also

discussed why these values were important and I learned from other
peoples perspectives the reason behind other values, and my mind swayed.
I know have other standards and values and priorities. By learning this way I
was able to gain more knowledge and grow in maturity.
The other article in this section was Reading in a Digital Age. This
article taught me a lot, but it mostly humbled me. Our generation is so lucky
to be able to have the technology we have at our fingertips 24/7. We talked
about the Pros and Cons about this. As long as we use it consciously and
LOOK UP, technology is good. I am grateful for the technology that I have
and to be able to use it the way I do. From this class I am more aware of how
often I use it and how often other people use it. This article was not just
about reading digitally but also socializing in general.
Happiness and a Good Life was our next topic and my favorite one. I
think I liked this one so much because I was able to relate to this one the
most. In class we defined what happiness is to ourselves and what society
defines as happiness. I consider myself a happy person and was surprised to
see that my classmates had similar definitions of it.
About a week after we had this discussion in class, I learned that many
people in my life were not happy and my world suddenly was turned upside
down. I found myself redefining what happiness really was to me and found
myself wondering what they thought happiness was. I kept thinking back to
our class discussions and these articles. I still find myself asking the
question, what is it that makes people happy? Who makes them happy?

What can I do to make them happy? As I now know, happiness come from
within. Not one thing or one person can determine a persons happiness.
The next two articles are where my dislike of humanities comes from.
Although, they are important subjects to learn about and educate ourselves
on, I feel that I have little control over them and that what I think and do,
does not have an effect. Although these subjects were hard to get through, I
think it is important to be educated about them.
Identity, Privilege, and Inequalities was our next module. I was able to
get the most perspective from this section. Growing up in Utah (especially
Bountiful, Utah), I was around people just like me. There was little diversity in
school. As a child I saw poverty at my dads work. He is a physician in Ogden
at community health center, where most of the population does not have
health insurance and are Hispanic. Other than glimpses into that, I was very
nave about people and privilege, identity and inequality.
I was upset to see how awful people actually get treated in our world.
As we watched clips from What Would You Do?, I was shocked at some of
the responses. It highlighted how racist our country is and how much farther
we have to go to treat everyone as human beings.
We took a privilege test and I had one of the highest scores in class. I
felt embarrassed and guilty. I was soon reassured that I shouldnt be feeling
this way but to learn from it and use it as an advantage to help the less
fortunate. Service and giving are big values where I grew up, and I grew up

to always serve, especially the people in need. Ive had many experiences of
this and am grateful for where I am at in my life.
I learned a lot from this sections articles, but what I took away the
most was that everyone deserves opportunity. We may not be equal and I
dont think we were meant to all be equal but we should all work together to
have the same opportunities and privileges. It is the responsibility of the
fortunate to help those in need. It is a group effort and not just one person
can change that. Society is in a positive direction but we must strive to make
everyone feel like a human being.
The last section of our humanities class was Freedom, Responsibility,
and Justice. We were able to kick start this module with the presidential
election. What better way to introduce these topics than a very controversial
election?
We were asked to annotate and note the poem, Make America,
America Again. Digesting this poem led me to understand what America
really is and what it really stands for. In this writing it explains that the
standards and expectations in our constitution, arent necessarily the
standards that we are practicing. We defined what freedom is. We asked
ourselves what the difference between being free and having freedom is. We
questioned our society. We sought ideas to be a more united country. We
realized how far we had come and how far we still need to go. We are our
country.

Through this article we gained knowledge as who we are individuals

and where we stand within our country. As a nation we need to be united as
one. It all starts with being educated about the problems and issues that are
facing us today. This class helped shed light and humor on the election and
the state of our nation.
In conclusion, Intro to Humanities was a great course. Although, I was
skeptical at first, I learned so much and it made me think so critically, that
those fears are gone. We focused on four major topics throughout this
semester which were: Critical Thinking and Interpreting Skills, Happiness and
a Good Life, Identity-Privilege-Inequalities, and Freedom-ResponsibilityJustice. Through each of these topics we learned more about ourselves, our
culture and other cultures, our community and our country. In this course we
learned, problem solved, gained new perspective and form new ideas.
I would recommend this class to any student that enjoys critical
thinking and human interest.