I’ve been at Bard College for a month now; the Workshop in Language and Thinking is over, and I began my “real” courses last Monday. I went home last weekend to see family, pick up my bike, tennis rackets, and relax. It feels very different having upperclassmen on campus now(they arrived last weekend), Language and Thinking was a lot like high school, everyone had (almost) the same schedule, and studied similar material, but now that courses have started, everyone seems a lot more independent.
L&T was truly amazing - now that the workshop has ended, I appreciate what I learned even more. My teacher was fantastic, and I’m happy to have him as my First Year Seminar teacher, too. He helped me most with my writing and development of ideas. He is also the reason I’m now taking Ancient Greek. During L&T, we read such amazing texts; Hannah Arendt, Aristotle, Samuel Beckett, Susan Sontag, Franz Kafka, Charles Darwin, Prigogine and Stengers, and more. My final essay was surrounded around the question, “Why do we speak?” It was a political analysis of communication and media throughout history. I talked about the idea that speech makes us human, and humans are, by nature, “political animals,” in reference to Aristotle and Arendt. I also talked about Internet Censorship in china, and the importance of sharing our opinions using free new media tools available on the Internet. I touched upon sousveillance, or inverse-surveillance, surveillance as a means of speaking. You can read my essay, but please don’t steal it or use parts of it without my permission. Download it as a PDF.
My class schedule.
I started courses on Monday, Labor Day. Here’s what I’m taking: First Year Seminar, Media and Society, Intro to Philosophy: Philosophical Classics, and Ancient Greek. All of my courses have been great so far, though I have spent a fortune on books, 22 in total. To me, it is strange having most classes only twice a week.
My side of the room.College has been an overwhelming positive experience, so far. On Friday night, I attended Shabbat services at Beit Shalom Salaam - twenty people showed up, in contrast to the two or three who would show up last year, the upperclassmen tell me. The school just got a new Rabbi, who really wants to reinvigorate Jewish life at Bard. I helped cook dinner, too - we made Challah, lasagna, and salad. I have not yet recorded a new episode of Nerd News Radio, but hopefully I’ll get around to that next weekend.
What was your college experience like?
Kabren Levinson is fist-year student at Bard College. Throughout high school, Kabren has worked in various technological, political, and artistic positions. He has worked as an intern at the MIT Media Lab Computing Culture Group and during his senior year of high school, he developed an Academic Technology program at the Cambridge School of Weston. He has been podcasting for over three years and has been blogging for two. Kabren is a philosopher, technologist, and artist.
Nice to hear that you are settling in ok at college. Wishing you a great first year!
As a high school senior, I’m beginning to see the light atthe end of my current tunnel, and the “pre-lit” tunnel that I will be experiencing in the somewhat-near future. Last week, I walked through the campus of St. John’s University on my way to their bookstore to look for a textbook for the CLEP course in Information Systems & Computer Applications that I’m taking this year. There probably wasn’t much to see from just walking around, but I became enlightened a little bit as to how the campus atmosphere feels.
For this year, however, I need to juggle preparing for the SAT (again), college applications, G-d willing buy a Nikon D40 before the our senior Israel trip (*relatively* easy to plan for a class of five in my small school, the dean, and a chaprone), finding a post-high school Bait Medrash in Israel to study in for a year, do well on the A.P. US History exam, do well on English and US History Regents, etc. etc. This will certainly be an interesting year for me as I prepare myself for entry into the real world, and for you as you take your first steps in “the real world”.
Once again, I wish you continued success with your academics and new relationships through your years of college.
Kabren, you are brilliant~!!!!!
i shall talk to you some time!
Nice to see everything’s going well! Good luck for the rest of the year!