I think the reason I haven’t posted to my blog as much this year is because blog posts are a way of marking time. Each blog post means that time at Yale has passed, things have happened, and I need to tell you about them.
But I don’t want time to pass. I don’t want to things to happen. Because every time something happens, that’s one less time it’s gonna happen again in my time at Yale. The Yale alma mater “Bright College Years” was right when it said these four years are “the shortest gladdest years of life”, with emphasis on the “shortest” part.
I’ve run into several people this week in Jackson who have asked me why I haven’t been posting as often. I would have told you all this in person, but I tear up every time I think about the fact that I’m going to be a senior next year, and I hate crying in public. So accept my written apologies for not posting. I’ll vow once again (how many times have I vowed this by now??) to do a better job of updating this blog regularly from now on.
I think of all the semesters yet, this one has been the semester when I’ve taken the most interesting classes. I am taking Classics of Ethics, Politics, and Economics; Constitutional Law; Introduction to Ethics; and Understanding Politics and Politicians.
Classics of EPE is a requirement for my major. It’s a lot like the directed studies political philosophy classes I took freshman year but with fewer papers, no lecture, and some different writers.
Constitutional Law is taught by Akhil Amar, who’s a professor at the law school and is supposedly really famous, though I’d never heard of him before I came to Yale. I find the course material absolutely fascinating, though I’m not the biggest fan of Amar’s lectures. I much prefer my section (in almost all lecture classes you have to take a discussion section with a TA in which you talk about the material learned in lecture in a smaller group). My TA is really cool (he worked in the GW Bush White House as a speechwriter, helped GW Bush write Decision Points, and is clerking for Chief Justice Roberts next year), and section is really interesting. Taking Con Law has made me more certain than ever that I want to go to law school, which is good.
Intro to Ethics is taught by Shelley Kagan, another supposedly famous professor I’d never heard of before I came to Yale. Ethics is another absolutely fascinating course in terms of the course material, but the grading is notoriously hard, which makes it less interesting and more stressful than it would be otherwise. If I had a single prayer request this semester, it would be for you to pray for my ethics grade. I’m going to need all the prayers I can get, y’all.
Understanding Politics and Politicians is a college seminar, which means it’s a course that lies outside of the usual structure of Yale academics and is taught by somebody who’s not on the Yale faculty. The course is co-taught by Dr. David Berg, a psychology professor, and Howard Dean, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee and sometime presidential candidate. The class is only 18 students, and it’s been a great experience so far.
That’s an update on the academics of this semester. In addition to these classes, I’m also getting ready for the LSAT, which I’ll be taking in June.
The last thing I’ll include in this blog post is about my summer plans. I will be working in the domestic policy department at the Heritage Foundation in DC, working specifically on education policy. I am really excited about the opportunities available to me not only at Heritage but also in DC in general for this summer. I will definitely keep y’all updated on this blog about my summer.
Loving spending a bit of time in Mississippi! All you Mississippians savor it every day!!!
Southern Belle at Yale
