St. Mary's Core Reflection
Aisha Fain
SMC4301J: Capstone Seminar
February 28, 2017
A First-Hand Review of the St. Mary’s Core
Throughout my entire life in school, I have always had some sort of a private and all-inclusive education. I first began my early childhood and elementary school years within the walls of a private and Catholic school while also continuing the trend of a faith-based education during my middle school and high school years. With this being said, all I have ever known is life within the safety and security of a religious and private education that I was not able to come to the crumbling realization of how fortunate I truly was compared to students with more of a public and state-funded education background. This realization became especially apparent …show more content…
to me while starting college and watching all my fellow Catholic school peers leave for well-known state schools and eventually coming back realizing how much they missed the idea of their faith intertwining with their education that allowed them to learn that there was more to life and much more to college than the crazy parties, awesome football games, and huge seminar classes that allowed you to skip multiple times without getting noticed.
One of the biggest comparisons often made between large state schools and smaller liberal arts institutions, especially an institution like St. Mary’s University has been the intertwining of the use of college as a vocational job factory and the given opportunity to the students to no only grow in their potential job skills, but to grow within themselves as human beings all working together for the common good. One of the best examples that schools like St. Mary’s aims to help its students grow and develop as a whole human being with themselves rather as job performing robots come graduation has been the idea and overall development of the St. Mary’s Core, otherwise known as SMC courses.
As students of St. Mary’s everyone has been required to take all SMC courses including classes in regards to the self, in regards to others, in regards to nature, and in regard to God as a main basis before further developing a foundation of practice and differentiation from with the help of everything previously learned throughout all SMC courses. In addition to this, each SMC course has been specifically designed with the idea of the Marianist characteristics that our school was founded upon as well as tribute to those who first founded the university. To create a well-rounded foundation for all students at St. Mary’s the SMC core is to be followed through a step of first completing a Foundations of Civilization course in addition to the four Foundations of Reflection courses in Self, Nature, Others, and God. Once these class have been completed, students are then permitted to move onto the next step in the St. Mary’s Core curriculum with the Foundation of Practice courses in Ethics, Civic Engagement and Social Action, Fine Arts and Creative Process, and Literature. Once all these courses have been completed, the student reflects on everything previously learned in all the other core classes and finds further discovers methods of integrating their educations gained at St. Mary’s as they prepare to graduate and move on to the real world. During my own time at St. Mary’s University, I feel permitted to say that the school has done its best to provide me with a better idea of who I am as an individual in this world and what I can do exactly to make it the best I can for future generations who may follow in my own footsteps. However, in order to come to be able to fully come to this conclusion, I will be speaking on my experiences within all SMC courses I have taken throughout my time in university in the order I have taken them and making a decision on whether or not each course was able to fulfill its purpose.
To begin, one of the first SMC courses I was able to take in my first semester at St.
Mary’s was Foundations of Civilization. According to the objectives set by the university, the overall main goal of this course is to provide a common foundation, knowledge, and understanding of all the major civilizations that have shaped the world for what it is today. As for my class in particular, I do remember learning about all early civilizations especially that of the early Mesopotamians and the Aztecs and how these groups were able to build empires as large as what exists today despite the little amount of modern technology that was able to exist. Although the goal of this class was to provide an overall understanding of modern society with the help of reviewing the world’s early history, I am not too sure if the knowledge that I ever obtained in this class ever came back during my reflections in any of my other SMC …show more content…
courses.
In addition to Foundations of Civilization course, I was also able to take Foundations of Reflection: Others during my first semester of my undergraduate study. Out of all the SMC classes I have taken in total, I have to say that this class was the hardest for me to understand mainly due to the professor who is rather well-known for his Socratic methods of teaching and often encouraging students to discover the answers to their questions on their own instead of relying on someone else to provide them with the answer. Nevertheless, I was able to gain a sense of a better understanding and empathy for those around me who may not have as many opportunities in certain things as I may have. For example, when discussing public education for children within Harlem, New York and other nearby areas, there is an unfair disadvantage for these children as their parents may feel the need to enroll their children into charter schools that are always said to provide excellent education without the heavy cost of private schooling. However, there is a catch where enrollment into these charter schools occurs through a lottery process where the parent practically gambles their child’s education for the sake of getting them into a better school. With this class, I was not only made more aware of this issue, but I now understand that its up to the general public as a whole to form together to put an end on taking advantage of families in different ways and work together towards a better solution.
Moving on into the spring semester of my first year, I was able to enroll in the Foundations of Reflection: Self course as well as the Foundations of Reflection: Nature in my second year of university.
I must admit that I do not remember anything that stood out to me during my Self class besides waking up super early in the morning to get to class and listening to the professor spend class after class talking about Plato’s Apology and reviewing the SMC Self book that was specially made for the class. If this class did teach me anything, I was able to learn how to think more philosophically and reasonably when making certain decisions as well as learning that I am definitely not a morning person. As for my Nature class, my experience was way more positive as I was able to finally have a complete understanding of the Scientific Method and how to apply it to a real world setting instead of only in a lab. I also feel like I was able to learn more due to the professor’s method of sitting among the students during class and making sure we all felt comfortable enough to share our thoughts and opinions with the help of friendly discussions and reflections on our
readings.
Moving on to Foundations of Reflection: God, I will say that this course was not the type of religion-based course I was originally expecting. At first, I did assume that tis class would be nothing but regurgitated “God is love” lectures and how no other religion is better than Christianity just like previous religion class I’ve had in the past. However, I did come to learn that this class seemed to provide students with the idea that there is more to Christianity than its basic teachings and that there are an array of theories with an interesting religious basis that we all should be open to no matter what religion or denomination we may all come from.
Rolling into the second half of my second year of college, I moved on from the first step of the SMC scale on to the next step with Foundations of Practice: Civic Engagement and Career Process as well as Foundations of Practice: Literature. When looking back at my Civic Engagement class, I have to say that this class in particular was another one of my favorite of all the SMC courses as it helped me to discover something that I am still passionate about to this day: increasing the quality of education for our youth. While volunteering as a reading buddy for San Antonio Youth Literacy, I was able to meet children in the nearby public schools who were falling behind in the school system, but were still willing to beat the odds against them and read as best as they could. My Literature class, on the other hand, was not as enjoyable as I had hoped as the books and readings the professor chose for us were not very appealing to me and I almost always saw reading and writing for this class as a chore.
My SMC Ethics course was able to better prepare me to make beneficial and more ethical decisions for the good of myself as well as for those around me. Finally, with a stronger appreciation and love for the art of music composition as learned in my SMC Fine Arts class, I feel that I am better able to open myself to all types of music in addition to making time to go to a show every now and then throughout the city.
Overall, I have found my experience with the St. Mary’s core to be a rather enlightening and somewhat enjoyable experience with the exception of some classes. What became most helpful to me was the balanced foundation that the early reflection courses were able to provide me in addition to the ability to practice everything we have learned within the Foundations of Practice courses that will create stronger, well-rounded individuals once graduated from the university.
SMC4301J: Capstone Seminar
February 28, 2017
A First-Hand Review of the St. Mary’s Core
Throughout my entire life in school, I have always had some sort of a private and all-inclusive education. I first began my early childhood and elementary school years within the walls of a private and Catholic school while also continuing the trend of a faith-based education during my middle school and high school years. With this being said, all I have ever known is life within the safety and security of a religious and private education that I was not able to come to the crumbling realization of how fortunate I truly was compared to students with more of a public and state-funded education background. This realization became especially apparent …show more content…
to me while starting college and watching all my fellow Catholic school peers leave for well-known state schools and eventually coming back realizing how much they missed the idea of their faith intertwining with their education that allowed them to learn that there was more to life and much more to college than the crazy parties, awesome football games, and huge seminar classes that allowed you to skip multiple times without getting noticed.
One of the biggest comparisons often made between large state schools and smaller liberal arts institutions, especially an institution like St. Mary’s University has been the intertwining of the use of college as a vocational job factory and the given opportunity to the students to no only grow in their potential job skills, but to grow within themselves as human beings all working together for the common good. One of the best examples that schools like St. Mary’s aims to help its students grow and develop as a whole human being with themselves rather as job performing robots come graduation has been the idea and overall development of the St. Mary’s Core, otherwise known as SMC courses.
As students of St. Mary’s everyone has been required to take all SMC courses including classes in regards to the self, in regards to others, in regards to nature, and in regard to God as a main basis before further developing a foundation of practice and differentiation from with the help of everything previously learned throughout all SMC courses. In addition to this, each SMC course has been specifically designed with the idea of the Marianist characteristics that our school was founded upon as well as tribute to those who first founded the university. To create a well-rounded foundation for all students at St. Mary’s the SMC core is to be followed through a step of first completing a Foundations of Civilization course in addition to the four Foundations of Reflection courses in Self, Nature, Others, and God. Once these class have been completed, students are then permitted to move onto the next step in the St. Mary’s Core curriculum with the Foundation of Practice courses in Ethics, Civic Engagement and Social Action, Fine Arts and Creative Process, and Literature. Once all these courses have been completed, the student reflects on everything previously learned in all the other core classes and finds further discovers methods of integrating their educations gained at St. Mary’s as they prepare to graduate and move on to the real world. During my own time at St. Mary’s University, I feel permitted to say that the school has done its best to provide me with a better idea of who I am as an individual in this world and what I can do exactly to make it the best I can for future generations who may follow in my own footsteps. However, in order to come to be able to fully come to this conclusion, I will be speaking on my experiences within all SMC courses I have taken throughout my time in university in the order I have taken them and making a decision on whether or not each course was able to fulfill its purpose.
To begin, one of the first SMC courses I was able to take in my first semester at St.
Mary’s was Foundations of Civilization. According to the objectives set by the university, the overall main goal of this course is to provide a common foundation, knowledge, and understanding of all the major civilizations that have shaped the world for what it is today. As for my class in particular, I do remember learning about all early civilizations especially that of the early Mesopotamians and the Aztecs and how these groups were able to build empires as large as what exists today despite the little amount of modern technology that was able to exist. Although the goal of this class was to provide an overall understanding of modern society with the help of reviewing the world’s early history, I am not too sure if the knowledge that I ever obtained in this class ever came back during my reflections in any of my other SMC …show more content…
courses.
In addition to Foundations of Civilization course, I was also able to take Foundations of Reflection: Others during my first semester of my undergraduate study. Out of all the SMC classes I have taken in total, I have to say that this class was the hardest for me to understand mainly due to the professor who is rather well-known for his Socratic methods of teaching and often encouraging students to discover the answers to their questions on their own instead of relying on someone else to provide them with the answer. Nevertheless, I was able to gain a sense of a better understanding and empathy for those around me who may not have as many opportunities in certain things as I may have. For example, when discussing public education for children within Harlem, New York and other nearby areas, there is an unfair disadvantage for these children as their parents may feel the need to enroll their children into charter schools that are always said to provide excellent education without the heavy cost of private schooling. However, there is a catch where enrollment into these charter schools occurs through a lottery process where the parent practically gambles their child’s education for the sake of getting them into a better school. With this class, I was not only made more aware of this issue, but I now understand that its up to the general public as a whole to form together to put an end on taking advantage of families in different ways and work together towards a better solution.
Moving on into the spring semester of my first year, I was able to enroll in the Foundations of Reflection: Self course as well as the Foundations of Reflection: Nature in my second year of university.
I must admit that I do not remember anything that stood out to me during my Self class besides waking up super early in the morning to get to class and listening to the professor spend class after class talking about Plato’s Apology and reviewing the SMC Self book that was specially made for the class. If this class did teach me anything, I was able to learn how to think more philosophically and reasonably when making certain decisions as well as learning that I am definitely not a morning person. As for my Nature class, my experience was way more positive as I was able to finally have a complete understanding of the Scientific Method and how to apply it to a real world setting instead of only in a lab. I also feel like I was able to learn more due to the professor’s method of sitting among the students during class and making sure we all felt comfortable enough to share our thoughts and opinions with the help of friendly discussions and reflections on our
readings.
Moving on to Foundations of Reflection: God, I will say that this course was not the type of religion-based course I was originally expecting. At first, I did assume that tis class would be nothing but regurgitated “God is love” lectures and how no other religion is better than Christianity just like previous religion class I’ve had in the past. However, I did come to learn that this class seemed to provide students with the idea that there is more to Christianity than its basic teachings and that there are an array of theories with an interesting religious basis that we all should be open to no matter what religion or denomination we may all come from.
Rolling into the second half of my second year of college, I moved on from the first step of the SMC scale on to the next step with Foundations of Practice: Civic Engagement and Career Process as well as Foundations of Practice: Literature. When looking back at my Civic Engagement class, I have to say that this class in particular was another one of my favorite of all the SMC courses as it helped me to discover something that I am still passionate about to this day: increasing the quality of education for our youth. While volunteering as a reading buddy for San Antonio Youth Literacy, I was able to meet children in the nearby public schools who were falling behind in the school system, but were still willing to beat the odds against them and read as best as they could. My Literature class, on the other hand, was not as enjoyable as I had hoped as the books and readings the professor chose for us were not very appealing to me and I almost always saw reading and writing for this class as a chore.
My SMC Ethics course was able to better prepare me to make beneficial and more ethical decisions for the good of myself as well as for those around me. Finally, with a stronger appreciation and love for the art of music composition as learned in my SMC Fine Arts class, I feel that I am better able to open myself to all types of music in addition to making time to go to a show every now and then throughout the city.
Overall, I have found my experience with the St. Mary’s core to be a rather enlightening and somewhat enjoyable experience with the exception of some classes. What became most helpful to me was the balanced foundation that the early reflection courses were able to provide me in addition to the ability to practice everything we have learned within the Foundations of Practice courses that will create stronger, well-rounded individuals once graduated from the university.