Reflection on First Semester of Freshman Year & Freshman Seminar

At first, I thought Howard University would be just a bunch of African American culture shoved down my throat. As a girl who was born in Antigua and Barbuda and raised there for half her life, it was not very appealing to me. In every class I go in all I hear about is Martin Luther King Jr. this, and Barack Obama that; so Freshman Seminar was refreshing. The lecturer’s spoke about Africa, the root of African American culture as a way to describe it. They spoke about the Caribbean, another place that suffered from the triangular trade, and they spoke about European culture in these areas. I thought that the broadened scope was a great angle and I really enjoyed Freshman Seminar for these reasons.

However, more often than not, I found it difficult to fill in the Caribbean and South American parts of my Mbongi form. I do believe there were efforts made to include this other culture but not enough. African American Culture and Caribbean Culture are not the same in anyway.  I would have liked to hear more about dialects in the Caribbean such as Patois, and how they originated from Africa.  I also would have liked to hear more about Caribbean belief systems and how they may or may not reflect some African belief systems. For the most part African American have assimilated to Western belief systems, however there is the Rastafarian belief system that is more parallel to some belief systems in Africa. Despite this lack of diversity, Freshman Seminar was more inclusive of these other cultures.

Reflection on Group Projects

This group project was very relevant and important to complete the lectures we had been given by our professors. It was like coming full circle. I felt my group members as well as the other groups who presented to me put a lot of time and research into their PowerPoint’s. My group decided to focus on the contributions African Americans have made in studies such as Science, Literature, History, and Politics. Another group did it on mental health in the black community, and the other on African American influence on the Arts.

The lectures were representative of the amount of thought that the professors wanted us to put into our own projects. I felt that they prepared me for the amount of research I needed to do. The blog posts prepared me for the level of writing I needed to show. I think this project was necessary to prepare us students for what it means to be a college student because our hands were not held. We were given approximately three weeks to pull things together and some people shined through as leaders more so than others. As freshman our grades are very serious to us so we really worked to pull other students through this project who were not doing their fair share of work. This project was a growing experience and we got t explore many aspects of African American life and history. I believed before this project that many of the lectures were not important but after presenting I can appreciate its importance.

Unleashed: Inventive Explorations and Inhibitions

I absolutely loved the dance showcase. As a former dancer, I know the need for more support in the arts. Most people see those forms of dance as boring or irrelevant. However, I'm sure anyone in attendance at the dance showcase could see how that's wrong. The dancers really painted stories of deep intellectual concepts conceived by the choreographers. The showcase as a whole was much bigger than dance.

My favorite performance had to be the second act, the piece on self-discovery and finding your pwn path in life. The performers moved in unison at some points and went off randomly in others. To me, this symbolized how in life people will try to do what others are doing. Then, they realize that they are meant to something else, so they stop following the crowd. I was also very moved by the domestic violence piece. These are topics that need more attention, and dance is a more creative way to get people to talk about them.

The student choreographers did a great job in pulling the show together. Even though they all focused on an array of concepts, the showcase seemed to all flow as one idea. It was inspiring to hear how they took time, energy, and effort as students to commit to this and schoolwork. I'm very eager to see the next performance in the dance department.

Freshman Seminar Self Reflection

My first semester has been the biggest learning experience. I've learned a lot about time management, motivation, and keeping my priorities straight. When I first came here, I thought I had everything under control and that there wasn't anything outside of general education that I would learn. Consequently, I've learned so much more outside of the classroom than inside the classroom.

Freshman Seminar has taught me the things mentioned above in an interesting way. My first impression of Freshman Seminar was that it would be a crash course in everything Howard. I was wrong. Freshman Seminar focused little on Howard, and more on the concepts of African knowledge and culture as a whole. It required so much more of my attention, and it definitely wasn't a class I could sleep through and blow off.

Along with learning about culture, Freshman Seminar has taught me that I have to put forth effort. It required effort and time management to research and put together an effective presentation. It required prioritizing and motivation to actually get up and go to class in the morning. I learned a lot about just being a good student, and also being a good citizen. The seminars have taught me what is expected of me as a Black student, and what my responsibilities are.

Group Presentations

Overall, I believe the presentations were successful. I didn't feel that any group did bad. It was interesting to see the array of topics concerning African culture and knowledge of that culture. Some of the topics were pretty general, but others were deep and insightful.

One presentation I thoroughly enjoyed was the group that researched depression in African Americans. That is a topic that many African Americans shy away from, because of shame. I didn't realize there were so many aspects as far as different types of depression and the causes in African Americans. The group presenting did a great job in their research.

I didn't care as much for the group presenting on dance and music in African American culture. They did a good job of picking a few big names in African American music. However, I felt that they could have done a little more research and mentioned names not as well known. It seemed as if their project may have been thrown together at the last minute.

I think my group did well, outside of the fact that we went over our presentation time. In all honesty, we didn't prepare in advance as much as we should have. But given the time frame, I think we pulled everything together nicely. Our research maybe could've been more narrow.

As a whole, the groups presenting with us did wonderful. A lot of people pulled examples from notes we took in seminars, which is a great use of resources. We've learned a lot this semester and we reflected our learning in our work. Hopefully, the skills we've acquired in seminars and while researching will stick with us for the remainder of our time here at Howard.

Extra Credit - Isabel Wilkerson

I had the fantastic opportunity to listen to Isabel Wilkerson speak about her amazing book The Warmth of Other Suns. One of the points that she emphasized multiple times throughout her talk was that the Great Migration was the first time in American history that people of the lowest caste in society realized that they had a choice and took advantage of them so that they could lead better lives. She discussed that Blacks were so limited in the South that even the Bible was segregated: In the court during trials, Blacks were forced to swear on a different Bible that the Whites. And every four days, African Americans were lynched for breeching the Jim Crow Laws of the South. These are just a few things that led the Blacks to leaving the South and moving North.

The Great Migration consisted of about six million Blacks leaving the South and moving the East Coast, Mid West, or the West Coast. World War I had many causalities of white men from the North and caused many of the migrants that lived in the North to move back home to Europe. This rapid population decline opened up many opportunities for Black to get jobs and make money so that they could move their families up North. Of course this movement of the Blacks up North upset the Southerners and they tried everything to keep the Blacks in the South to work on their farms and railroads.

When asked why she wrote the book, Isabel Wilkerson answered that none of us would be where we are now of our parents or grandparents, or great grandparents didn’t migrate. She made the points that those who left were not doing it for themselves, but for their families and their descendents; they left for us, for their unborn children, so that we could have the best opportunities possible. Important Black figures like Toni Morrison, August Wilson, Diana Ross, John Coltrane, and even Michael Jackson would not have had the significant lives they lived if their families did not migrate to the North.

Wilkerson stated that, “we are all products of the Great Migration”, something that I had never thought about until I read her book. I never thought that my grandfather’s migration from Virginia to New Jersey was done not only so that he could free himself but so that he could free his children and his grandchildren. I think the most important thing that my generation can do is accomplish the goals we have and then surpass them so that we can do our ancestors of the Great Migration justice; we owe it to the millions of migrants to be the best we can possibly be.

First Semester Self Reflection

I’d say that overall, this first semester has gone pretty well. It took some time to adjust in the beginning and to really learn how certain professors teach. I think in terms of freshman seminar, classes like English have really reflected a lot that we learned in the lectures. Surprisingly, I have found myself on many occasions discussing the topics that we learned about in our many lectures with my roommate in relation to current events or things that happen to us on a daily basis. I feel that the lectures can be considered relevant to my every day life.

Some of my favorite lectures given by Dr. Carr and Kimberly Worthy have definitely inspired me and made me think more about my role as a student here at Howard University as well as a human being on this earth. Never before have been more inspired to give back to my surrounding community as well as my community at home in Philadelphia. Their lectures really helped me understand the real importance of community service and the significance of getting an education so that I can go back home and share that knowledge with others.

I think it is because of these lectures that I have really begun to find my self this semester; I have started to shape my own thoughts and opinions. My desire to continue my education off of Howard campus and after my career here at Howard has never been stronger because of this course.