We are supposed to write why we want to learn, but could a reason be just to learn? I am a senior in high school, and I have taken more than enough advanced placement courses so far to be college ready, so I do not need to take this class. I could get away with just taking music history for my senior level English course, which is a subject that I enjoy, and study often at home, but I decided to take this course my senior year to learn about things which I may have not
learned about before, and to have a forum to discuss what I am learning with a group of intelligent people, which is an aspect of learning lost when learning things on the computer. For instance, the other day, I was teaching myself about ancient members of our genus, Homo, of which we are the only survivors, and I learned that contrary to common belief, H. neanderthalensis was not the latest living of the other species of the genus, but H. floresiensis, a hominid from Indonesia, was. It survived the Neanderthals by 12,000 years, and ancient human interactions with them still live on in the Indonesian legends of Ebu Gogo legends. Their demise seemed to be from volcanic eruptions on Komodo, but this is not necessarily true. I found this piece of science and history very interesting, but, like with most of my other studies, I could not talk about it with others, as they did not have knowledge on the subject, and I could not learn from them. Sure, I was able to teach others about my findings, but I could not learn from others, or converse about viewpoints on the topic different than mine. This is why want to go to college and this is also the main reason that I take advanced placement classes, so that I can learn from others. Getting a GPA boost from the course does help me in getting into college, and that is a plus, but I am in the class to learn.
I guess that I will use goals in my want to learn to make this class meaningful to me. My main goal will be to gain entrance to UCLA with a biochemistry major, and to earn the approximate $30,000 that I need to be able to step onto that campus next fall as a student in the marching band. I could also have side goals, such as my current one, which is to learn German to the point of me being able to converse with others who speak german, and other odds and ends of learning that I have been interested in lately (such as germanic (and european in general) culture, and the extinct species of our genus, Homo.
learned about before, and to have a forum to discuss what I am learning with a group of intelligent people, which is an aspect of learning lost when learning things on the computer. For instance, the other day, I was teaching myself about ancient members of our genus, Homo, of which we are the only survivors, and I learned that contrary to common belief, H. neanderthalensis was not the latest living of the other species of the genus, but H. floresiensis, a hominid from Indonesia, was. It survived the Neanderthals by 12,000 years, and ancient human interactions with them still live on in the Indonesian legends of Ebu Gogo legends. Their demise seemed to be from volcanic eruptions on Komodo, but this is not necessarily true. I found this piece of science and history very interesting, but, like with most of my other studies, I could not talk about it with others, as they did not have knowledge on the subject, and I could not learn from them. Sure, I was able to teach others about my findings, but I could not learn from others, or converse about viewpoints on the topic different than mine. This is why want to go to college and this is also the main reason that I take advanced placement classes, so that I can learn from others. Getting a GPA boost from the course does help me in getting into college, and that is a plus, but I am in the class to learn.
I guess that I will use goals in my want to learn to make this class meaningful to me. My main goal will be to gain entrance to UCLA with a biochemistry major, and to earn the approximate $30,000 that I need to be able to step onto that campus next fall as a student in the marching band. I could also have side goals, such as my current one, which is to learn German to the point of me being able to converse with others who speak german, and other odds and ends of learning that I have been interested in lately (such as germanic (and european in general) culture, and the extinct species of our genus, Homo.
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