What Have I Missed?

My lengthy disappearance was the result of preparing for and attending university. I made the Dean's List my first semester with an A in English Composition, an A in General Psychology, an A+ in Introduction to Film (the instructor used the +/- scale), y tengo una A en mi clase de español.

The plan is to major in biology. I am unsure about my minor, but it will probably be photography or film & video production. My English instructor suggested I pursue a creative writing degree, but life as a starving artist can be quite a downer.

Noting accusations of liberal bias in academia, I must say that the most objective professor I had was... the film teacher! To be fair, though, the English teacher promptly apologized for her one, fleeting digression, and all of them encouraged independent thought.

I will attend Elementary Spanish II and World History I [ed: changed course] during the summer. Wish me well!

Update: Via Instapundit: James Felton, a professor of finance and law at Central Michigan University, and a colleague looked at ratings for nearly 7,000 faculty members from 370 institutions in the United States and Canada, and his verdict is: the hotter and easier professors are, the more likely they’ll get rated as a good teacher.

I liked my professors, from the two ladies with movie star looks to the 60-something men with too much/little hair, and they were only easy in the sense that they taught freshman courses. I was in the top 10 out of 300+ psych students (and that was my worst subject!), so I suggest the greatest failure of our educational system is not bias, or hotness ratings, or even depth of subject, but the neglect of critical thinking. Encouraging independent thought means little without also developing the tools (namely reason) to apply one's intellect. A women who sat behind me in film class was amazed at how much I took notes and studied, and when I said to her that studying is how one makes good grades she replied, "Maybe that's why I don't make good grades."