Friday, July 10, 2009

The End

Today was my last day of class and we watched Across the Universe. Although I don't really like musicals, the movie was actually pretty good. The majority of the events that happened in the sixties were portrayed in the film. What I didn't like about the movie was that the transition from scene to scene was very weird and confusing. The movie didn't really flow.

After the movie we discussed the sixties and the forties and fifties as well. We talked about how the problems and concerns in the forties and fifties were mostly voiced in the sixties. We recapped the forties with conversation about post-war anxieties revolving around atomic bombs. Then we discussed the fifties in correspondence with its prosperity, nuclear family ideals, and McCarthyism. We gathered all these quick summaries and saw how they were brought out in the sixties with nuclear family ideals turning into the Women's Right Movement and how McCarthyism became anti-McCarthyism for the counter-culture and anti-war protesters.

Overall, the title of my class: Decades of Change, was very fitting because these three decades made the platform for how America is today and without those three decades, I really wonder what America would be like. I really enjoyed my class and I learned A LOT of interesting facts that I didn't learn in school. I am very glad that I decided to take this course. I would definitely recommend this course for future ILC students who are incoming seniors because they will learn so much that they didn't learn in class. When I arrive back home and tell of my experience, I will say that this was definitely a great opportunity for me because I was able to learn more facts about those three important decades in American history and that I had the chance to take this course at an Ivy League school!

Being at Brown helped me realize what school will best fit me and although Brown is no longer at the top of my list, I am thankful that being here helped me realize that. I look forward to the college application process later on this year and hope that my first choices: Stanford and Columbi, will accept me. The ILC has made a big difference in my life and hopefully many more students will have this great opportunity that I did.

3 comments:

Charles Tillman Ramsey said...

Thanks Avauna for coming our way. We enjoyed our Saturday College Tour trip where you took great notes and pictures.

I am glad that you had a good time and I know that Columbia is at the top of your list. I could see that NYC fits into your plans. I enjoyed reading your posts. I was a history major at UCLA and what you wrote through the weeks took me back through memory lane. I do hope that you will use what you learned in the class and return even more motivated to engage other students in valuable history lessons.

Good luck and have a safe flight home.

Take care.

Charles T. Ramsey, Esq.
School Board Member
West Contra Costa
Unified School District

Madeline Kronenberg said...

Avauna,

I am happy you enjoyed your class and hope you are able to share some of the information from it with your fellow students when you return.

I am also delighted that your own priorities became clearer to you -- and I hope that Stanford and Columbia do accept you (be sure, however, that you've got your back-up plans, just in case).

I'm glad you got to be part of the ILC this year. Keep us in the loop and let us know all the schools you do apply to and your final winner.

Happy travels home.

Don Gosney said...

Avauna,

You could spend a lifetime—as many people have—studying any one of the three decades from your class. These were such tumultuous times and the world was changing right before peoples’ eyes.

As old as I am I can’t speak to the 40’s and even with the 50’s I only lived through 60% of them but the 60’s were right there in my face every day so many of the things you studied were the current events of my day. Just being a part of that time altered who and what I am just as these times will help to mold your own future.