Memoir, BIC Reflection

I can’t believe how fast time has passed by. When I look back on the days when I was a freshman, it really feels as if all those memories took place sometime in the near past; those memories come from a slightly obscure place that isn’t exactly fuzzy, yet not exactly crystal clear. I don’t know when I will be able to grasp the concept that I am a senior; my years at Baylor don’t seem like they should be coming to an end.

I remember the my initiation into the college life very well, and although I know that just about every other freshman experienced the same trivial trials, I would like to think that my experience was one that was different from most.

By the time I was a senior in high school I had no idea what I wanted to do for my career. By February I had narrowed down my college choices to two options: Baylor University, or Texas Christian University. After much contemplation, I chose, what seemed to me, the most conservative school and soon began making plans for my orientation and new school year.

One of five children, I am the first to attend a private institution. Driving down to Waco from East Dallas was an exciting trip. My whole family ended up cramming into the suburban so that I may attend my few days of orientation and I could officially join the Baylor Family. I remember going to lecture after lecture on the different programs that Baylor had to offer, and at the end of it, still not knowing what I wanted to do for a living. I must admit, I did not join the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core by choice. It was my dad who signed me up for the task, and at the time I hated him for it. All I knew about this group was that it was different. And different is what I tried to stay away from. As a freshman I wanted to have things go as smoothly as possible. I wanted to fit in with the rest of the crowd and not cause too much attention to myself. And I knew, that this “Baylor Core” group was not popular with all the other freshman. But because my father was the one paying for my education, and because I was told that I couldn’t apply to the Honors College, I had no other choice but to stay in the dreaded program. Sure enough before I knew it, my perception of BIC had changed dramatically.

My freshman year was crazy. Through the advising of Ms. Train, I took a total of 5 BIC classes: Examined Life I, World Cultures I, World of Rhetoric I, World of Rhetoric II, and World Cultures II. My Examined Life class with Dr. Nogalski was awesome. It was during this class that I had met two of my best friends at the time, and it was also the first time in the history of my education that I felt that the teacher had actually cared for her students. There was an extreme passion she demonstrated throughout the semester that showed her dedication to the program and the class. And this was something extremely new to me. To be honest I don’t remember much of what I was supposed to learn in the class, but I do remember that this was the class where I was introduced to the concept of open-discussions. The entire semester was spent in reflection of our thoughts about the current assignment we had, and I had felt that the class was truly focused on the students understanding of the material. During middle school and high school, I did not have a learning environment like this. Most teachers planned their entire school year in methods and lessons that would prepare students to pass the state tests given each year—there was no such passion from the teachers to have the students actually learn the material; we, as students, just needed to “get by”.

The World of Rhetoric was a painful yet humorous experience that I will never forget. Oh those New York Times were the devil, and I cannot even count on my hands how many all-nighter parties were thrown in the effort to finish those assignments. It was for these classes that I pulled my first frantic all-nighter. It is with a silly smile that I remember being with my two BIC friends stuck in the 24 hour Prichard Silent Study Area in Moody Library the night before my first New York Times assignment was due. We were desperately looking through different days of the newspapers that we had saved, and trying to find five articles that had some correlation to each other AND to the BIC class. I don’t know how we didn’t get kicked out with all of the newspaper crinkling noises we made, and the constant whispers of “Are you almost finished yet?!?” Six hours later from when we had met up at 9 pm at night, I remember the point of us reaching hysteria. Randomly bursting out in uncontrollable laughter, we were so sleep deprived I have no idea how we made it out with our minds in one piece! Unfortunately the three of us refused to learn from the dreaded experience and ended up making an unofficial tradition that the New York Times always be done the night before and always be done as an all-nighter. Why? Ha, I have no clue, but by the end of my World of Rhetoric classes, I had fully understood what the phrase “BIC My Life” meant.

It is without doubt that I give my credit to public speaking to my World of Rhetoric I class. The day my class received the speaking assignment I was two inches from a panic attack. “A six minute speech??! Oh my god, I’m going to faint.” But sure enough, good ol’ BIC ended up proving me wrong. It had once again managed to show me that my potential for academics and life far superseded what I initially thought, and that my capabilities far superseded what I had imagined. I spoke over my experience with teaching a child with the highest level of autism how to swim, and let me tell you, I nailed it. In my mind I had thought, “Getting over the fear of speaking in front of others for an extended amount of time—check!” I also remember that this was the class that ended at 5:00 in the evening. It didn’t take long for our teacher to see that her kids were mentally exhausted by this hour of the day, so she quickly made a revision to the class room rules. We were allowed to participate in the Baylor Dr. Pepper hours, and man, did those little floats make a world of a difference.

My World Cultures classes were some of the best academic classes I could ever have asked to take. It was these classes that truly began to bring me out of the small bubble I had been living inside of for the previous 18 years of my life. The classes introduced me to a new world that was so big and exciting. I was so intrigued by the method of having two separate forms of class: small group, and large group. In large group I got to see many presentations by many different professors just on one subject. It blew me away. Who knew that you could take a class that taught you about every aspect of a culture, rather than just once concept? It was amazing! Not only was I learning about the religion of that culture, but I was learning about their art history as well? And all the while, being able to shift between the lessons in large group, where I got to sit in a pretty cool auditorium with my oh-so-awesome friends, and small group where my class got to openly discuss (a concept that I was still new to, yet quickly learning to embrace) the topics in depth with my World Cultures I teacher that required us to call him Jedi-Master Whitlark.

Oh and how can I forget, it gets even better: FIELDTRIPS. How many students can say that throughout their classes at Baylor, they got to take fieldtrips to awesome places every single semester? I know I can! These field trips were so much fun. My first year I remember learning about the Jewish religion. I remember going to visit a Jewish synagogue in Waco and getting the opportunity to sing some hymns in a different language. Well, I guess “sing” really isn’t the proper word to describe it. It was more of humming the sounds of the words because I had no idea how to pronounce them. The Rabi talked to our entire group about his religion and his devotion to it. I remember being so captivated by his love for his religion, but not knowing how to accept his religion because it was different from mine. My favorite moment from that trip was having the different Torahs laid out in front of me. All this time I had heard of the sacred scrolls and now they were sitting right in front of me; objects that were worth thousands of dollars and yet they remained absolutely priceless. I felt blessed in this moment. I was very humbled to have this man and this synagogue open up to me for my better understanding of the culture/religion.

I also remember going two more field trips that stood out extremely because I had learned to have a deep respect for the cultures that were explored. One was the field trip to Fort Worth Japanese Botanical Gardens. Going to a high school in Dallas had already allowed me to explore these gardens before, so I had already obtained a general idea of what they entailed. But when I went to view the Japanese gardens, it felt like I was truly seeing them for the first time. Throughout the course of the semester, we had learned many different things about the Japanese culture. It revolved around tradition, honor, commitment, and a deep respect for the elements of nature. And this new knowledge allowed me to look at the designs of the gardens and really understand their meanings. By this course in time, I had decided to change my major from getting a Bachelors in Biology, to a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture. I was absolutely captivated by the architectural landscape; the relationship between the ponds, hills, Zen gardens, walkways, and plants were beyond beautiful; I still have my sketches of the gardens in my sketchbook.

Another favorite field trip was taken to the Dallas Central Mosque of the Islamic Association of North Texas in Dallas. It is one thing to learn of a culture in class by reading books and looking at power point presentations in Kayser Auditorium. And it is a completely different experience to learn the culture through books, and then physically go to a setting and experience the culture first hand. The BIC program applied emphasis to this concept of learning so much, and I am truly grateful for that. Being required to read the Qur’an opened up my eyes even more to the understanding that there are people different than me; that there are cultures different than mine. The way I was raised was very black and white. And I was told many times that if it wasn’t “my” way, then it was the “wrong” way. This was what my parents had taught me all throughout my education, and I say with a thankful heart, BIC was the one to help lift the veil that had been placed over my eyes, heart, and mind. Going to the mosque was an exciting experience. I remember being very anxious to see what it had looked like on the inside, and (sad to say) what the people looked like in the inside. How did they spend their time worshiping? What did they wear and say while doing so? The discussion that took place was extremely enlightening. There was a lot of interest in the role of women in the Muslim faith and culture, and I was surprised that the lady who was answering questions was so open and honest with us as she was. She explained to us her everyday life routines and her roles in the culture. I remember being amazed by fact that she was okay with having her husband being picked for her. I absolutely respected her decision of deciding to give up her attachment to worldly things and commit to her culture and religion by always wearing a hijab in public places. I also remember being introduced to a lady who had changed her religion from being Baptist, to being Muslim. She had met and fell in love with a Muslim man and was introduced to a culture that she readily embraced and loved. At that time there was a part of me that feared for her. I was afraid that maybe God would punish her for her sin in believing in another God. But as she began to tell her story my fear slowly subsided. During that visit, I learned that the Muslim God, Allah, was just the same as my God. The story was just told a little differently. It was these moments when I could feel heart and my mind expanding. This new knowledge was so new and interesting and pure, it just made me crave for more.

The classes of Social World did not, sadly, have the same effect on me as did my other BIC classes. Social World I was a little blurry, and I don’t remember much about the actual classic philosophy. (Sorry!) The entire semester felt like my class was playing a game of “catching up”. Initially I had Dr. Thorburn as my professor and I remember him having a great sense of humor. Then next thing I knew, a couple of class days were canceled and we suddenly had a new instructor, Professor White. Unfortunately he was not accustomed to the BIC curriculum and I feel like we spent most of the time just reading the assigned books and not much time discussing them or the philosophy. By the time Social World II came around I seemed to have lost interest in the concept of philosophy all together. I thought the entire course was very loose and I remember not being able to connect a lot of the concepts of sociology to the assignments that were assigned. Although I hated the second course, I really do wish I could repeat it. I hate having the feeling of finishing a class but not really understanding what it was about.

My junior year had only required me to take one semester of a BIC class which was Biblical Heritage and Contemporary Christian Ethics. It was my first time I had the privilege of being a pupil of Dr. Tatum, and I’m so sad I have never had him for a small group before this class! Talk about a guy, who knew his stuff. I don’t think there was a single class period where my mouth wasn’t hanging open from being absolutely captivated by his discussions and stories. He had such knowledge of the Middle East during the Biblical times and everything else that I had truly begun to grow a deep respect for him throughout the semester. It sounds silly, but after the end of the semester I had officially made him a member of the “If you could have lunch with anyone (dead or alive) right now, who would it be?” list. Knowledge—he is pure knowledge. His passion about the subject allowed me to become completely engrossed in the material. His thought-provoking questions allowed me to really step back and look at the religion that I had grown up with a different set of eyes. It was the parsing of the literature in combination with understanding the actual history of that current world that transformed my vision of Christianity. It was this class that really helped me change my ways of living and thinking from a person who accepted things as they were without hesitation, to a person who analyzed and made decisions for herself. Sounds intense, but after this class, I discovered that I was no longer going to do something because I was told to; I was going to do something because I wanted to. The Christian religion was now so much more than the few Bible stories that I had learned in Sunday school. I now had discovered that there was an intense depth to the faith—one that I am still trying to fully understand and embrace.

Alas, my senior year introduced me to yet another new culture. It never stops, does it? Yoga and Philosophy in Contemporary American Culture is without doubt my favorite class I have taken in the BIC program. It’s funny, but I now understand why we needed to save this class for last. We, as students, needed to culture and mature our minds to fully be able to understand something so complex and intense, while at the same time, knowing how to cherish and respect it. I know for a fact that as a freshman, I would not be able to intellectually be able to understand the philosophy of yoga and simultaneously appreciate its concepts.

This semester for me has been extremely rough, and unfortunately as it has started coming to an end, my problems have become even worse. It was mentioned in the middle of the semester that I had an intense break up with my ex-boyfriend of 8 years. The way things had ended between him and I was awful, and hit me by complete surprise. Like any foolish girl in love, I believed he was the man I would marry. And with his cold goodbye, he took away a huge part of what I knew as myself. I tried so hard to not let my sadness and depression take over me; I had let that happen once in my life before, and because of it, I am not able to remember my life during that dark period. Everybody knows the feeling of loss and despair, and I hated it. Between October and the middle of November I felt like I was going through a monotonous routine: wake up, cry, shower, school, more crying, more school, home, even more crying and sleep.  That’s all I was able to manage, and my hurt had made me become recluse. Sitting here today, I can still say that I am hurt. I still cry in the shower, and I still have dreams that he and I are happily together. But looking back in reflection has made me realize that my spirit is different. And it turns out, this yoga class has helped me in my recovery in so many ways.

I am an extremely shy girl, who doesn’t like to put herself out there. It’s funny, but as soon as you step through that door to Morrison 100 Tuesday/Thursdays from 3:30-4:45, you have no choice but to throw that “shyness” out the door. Yoga is an extremely demanding practice both mentally and physically, and there is no way you can practice it without exposing yourself to others. (Well, in this case at least.) Although no one was really paying attention, my flexibility in certain poses and lack of balance in other poses was information made known to many. The practice of yoga helped me come out of my hole this semester. It required me to engage with others and my body, in really fun and new ways. There were many days when I would come to class with nothing to offer but silence and participation, because of my sadness. And it was actually those days, when I found myself laughing at myself for not knowing how to properly do a pose; I would find myself biting my lip and then jumping with satisfaction when I finally accomplished a semi-good version of Eagle Pose for longer than three seconds. It was through the practice of yoga that I was starting to become a part of myself again, but it was through the philosophy of yoga that I began to find my true self again. “Still the fluctuations of the mind”, I would chant while lying down in shavasana. “Just listen to the soothing mantras of Dr. Schultz, you can do it,” I would think. Who knew stilling the mind was so hard to do! Yet, it is because of this class that I now know the importance of the concept. It was through that practice of removing my mind from the distractions of the world that I could analyze my life and myself. The readings were absolutely amazing. There were many times where I would find a correlation between my life and a concept in the readings, and I would take these concepts to heart. I would carry these around with me and remind myself of them when I began to feel the slightest bit of despair. I have begun to understand the importance of mind body relationship, something that I had never before given the slightest moment of thought to.

I am greatly appreciative of the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core program. Many times I find myself bragging about my awesome experiences. I am a senior who is in her last year at Baylor. Not many of my BIC classmates are art majors, but let me tell you it is a completely different world. A studio art major lives in the art building—we don’t have a choice. We often take 2-3 studio courses a semester whose classes meet two times a week for three hours at a time. After our school day is over, we are forced to spend at least 5 more additional hours in the studio to work on our assigned projects. Often times I find myself jealous of students with other academic majors. They don’t realize what a privilege they have to be able to read their book in the comfort of their own home, or be able to take their paper with them on the trip home. Art majors don’t have this option, because our work can only be done in the studio. I can only throw a clay pot on the wheel here at school, because I don’t have a wheel at home. I can only print my intaglio or lithography print here at school because I don’t have a hot plate or press at home; the same goes for my metal sculptures and the need for the welder and plasma cutter, and my wood sculptures and the need for a ban saw. It is a world that demands nothing but your full devotion, even though you may have classes outside of the Lewis Art Building. But it was around the end of my sophomore year that I noticed a split between me and my art peers. I noticed that as we began to advance in our college careers, many, if not all, began to become more focused in their studios, and soon their degree audit would not require them to take any more liberal academic classes. But I on the other hand continued to learn in both fields. And it is because of BIC that that is possible. I feel like I can leave Baylor feeling completely satisfied. I feel like I was really able to get a full education here at Baylor; my education was very literal in the sense of it being interdisciplinary.

It is because of the BIC that I am able to accept and embrace new knowledge. It is because of BIC that I feel like I was given a true learning experience. Through the program I was offered a class setting in which the professor really cared about the students; the professor really bonded and got to know us. I was able to have discussions with my teachers and peers about materials that only helped me grow more intellectually and spiritually. I have compared BIC to every one of my other classes and they come nowhere even close. There was such a difference between BIC classes and my Greek, Biology, Physics, and other science classes. I felt that lack of connection between my classmates, professor, and I. And it only made me appreciate BIC that much more. I am truly grateful for my experience with the BIC program, and I know that I am going to miss it terribly. It has helped me grow and learn in so many different ways, and I know that I will carry every aspect of it with me for the rest of my life.