It’s seems okay so far, a nice small class size and my professor seems nice. Though he did make me pause a few times. I couldn’t gauge where he lies politically as he seems to see Trump as a joke while also making neutral comments/examples on the likes of Danielle Smith. It is the first class so I’m not going to make quick judgements of his stances. What did make me slightly uneasy is his sprinkled comments about China here and there.
By comments I mean him using China as an example for a few of the terms we were learning about. The first comment that came up was China using ”soft power” to influence African countries and to push Chinese culture on said countries. He gave the example of the push for learning the Chinese language.
The next time he brought up China was when we discussed Jus Soli and Jus Sanguinis, this sparked the conversation about the idea of dual-citizenship and how China is very against it. You can only be Chinese, nothing else.
The last time he brought up China was in regards to Taiwan. We were learning about what the definition of “State” was:
- building blocks of politics
- legal entity
- sovereignty—absolute control
- territoriality
- population
- government
- external recognition (UN)
Taiwan was brought up as an example of a place wanting to become sovereign, a state of its own, but China having absolute power to veto their request.
At this point I put a little star in my notebook that my Professor seems to be very focused on China. He never had anything good to say but so far he hasn’t said anything explicitly negative.
Anyway that was my first day of PoliSci, by the end of it I sent in a request to join the model UN club lol.
If anyone has some great resources on China to dispel any misinformation, both common and obscure, I would appreciate it very much. Even just pointing me in the direction of certain books and/or historical events would be incredibly helpful.
If any of you would like me to share more of my experiences in, not only my Political Science class, but also Psychology, let me know!
That’s cool! I wish you luck with your endeavors!
I do see how the two field could be easily linked however and intertwined, so parallels between the two fields seem like they would be fun to find and connect!
Would it also be ok if I ask what year of college you are in? I’m just trying to plot out my own path, so hearing about experiences from others that may be further down the line then me is always helpful!
I’ll answer whatever questions you or anyone else have, I’m an open book! I would say I’m in first year, but before I actually took two semesters at a different university straight out of high school. I was able to transfer the credits I made there to this other university so I was able to skip over the required first year courses because of that.
So essentially after high school I went straight to uni, took two semesters, then dropped out because of burn out and mental health stuff. Took a few years to figure myself out and now I’m back to school at a different uni, transferring credits over so I can skip. You could say I’m in “second year” even though all my classes this semester are 100 level. By second semester (fall) I’ll be in 200 level.
Hope this makes sense! If you’re not in university/college already I’ll give you the best piece of advice: don’t have a full schedule. If your school will allow it, try to only take maybe three courses. For the schools here five courses are the max per semester. I had to drop out the first time because I overdid it. Now I’m taking things easy to better get situated into the uni life.