Semester 4 has been over for a month and yet I haven’t made a post here yet. Many probably are well aware that I am still around due to commenting on other posts but I felt it necessary to make a post here since semester 5 is approaching and I haven’t even talked about how 4 went.

Well, it was painful. Not really due to course content but because of how it was an accelerated semester, meaning 13 weeks of content is condensed down to only a few days. I took three courses: two history of politics classes and one history course. How it works is that the history of politics classes are split in two: part 1 and part 2, separate classes worth their own credits but part 1 must be taken to take part 2. So in May I took part 1 and once I was finished and received the credits I took part 2 in June. My history of Canada course spanned both May and June, so it was slightly longer than my politics classes.

Part 1 was all bout ancient philosophy, so Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, and Socrates. We read The Republic, Aristotle’s Politics, and The City of God (not the whole book, just a few relevant pages). We then had to write a paper dedicated to one chapter/book of The Republic. This class was fine and nothing to write home about, my professor was fantastic. He was not what i was expecting, he made these ancient philosophers easy to understand and spoke in a very engaging way. I was worried this would be a very dry and difficult class but it really wasn’t content-wise. Unfortunately it was difficult due to the time constraints placed on us. Having to learn this much content in such a short amount of time was a pain in the ass so I didn’t do as well in these classes as I’d like. I didn’t do terrible but I would’ve liked to do better. Hopefully next time I take accelerated semesters I will be better prepared due to this experience.

Part 2 focused on more modern political philosophers: Machiavelli (The Prince), Hobbes (Leviathan), Locke (Second Treatise of Government), Rousseau (A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality and Of the Social Contract), Marx and Engels (Manifesto of the Communist Party), Mill (On Liberty), and Rawls (A Theory of Justice). I was psyched but also worried that we were going to cover Marx and Engels but I was pleasantly surprised. I was struggling a bit with the content in the beginning as Hobbes talks in a way that is difficult for me to understand and I was unsure of what thee hell I was doin in the class, he helped me through it and at some point I mentioned that I was very interested in Marx and Engels and my professor just straight up said that I could write my paper on Marx even though the topics listed on the syllabus were about Rousseau. He really pushed the idea of pursuing what you’re passionate about which is great for me as I believe it helps keep students engaged, at least it does for me. I don’t really like having to write papers on topics I am totally uninterested in, but I’ll do it if I have to, but since he gave me he go ahead I was super happy. Not only that but he was enthusiastic about me making arguments on the midterm and final from a Marxist perspective. For the midterm and finals he would give us statements from the philosophers and we would have to argue for or against it. Basically the question would be like “Rousseau said this… do you agree or disagree,” and the format of the exam was to first say whether we agree or not, then write in detail what the philosopher was arguing (displaying that we have knowledge on what they are saying), and then the last section is our argument.

My only issue I had with this class, besides the lack of time, was some comments made here and there about Stalin, Lenin, and the USSR. It was the typical “totalitarianism” thing plus a comment made about how Stalin really loved The Prince and how apparently that is something to think about. I guess some people call The Prince the most evil book because so many tyrants loved it. I don’t know what to do with this knowledge but maybe you have something to say about it, I don’t know.

My history class was standard, were learned about Canada from 1867 to the 90s. I was pleasantly surprised about this class with regard to communism and the USSR as both the textbook and professor did not talk shit even during the Cold War era. When it mentioned the paranoia the Soviet Union was going through it was stated as being rightful. When talking about the red scare it didn’t shy way from saying the Canadian government was friendlier to the fascists as they hated communists more, although I wish the course talked about how the Prime Minister during WWII was chill with Hitler and how Canada sent Jewish refugees to their deaths. There was quite a bit missing that should’ve been talked about. I know why you’re thinking, “well just write about it for the paper you were assigned,” and I definitely would have if the paper was a topic we could choose but UNFORTUNATELY the paper had to be about solving an unsolved murder: William Robinson. There is a whole site dedicated to this murder, and my god, was it a pain in the ass to write this paper. Theres the fact that i did NOT want to write a true crime paper, but also by the end of the paper I was left with more question than answers. I would’ve had a better grade if the paper was on a different topic, but c’est la vie.

Again, I didn’t do terrible (I got higher than B minuses in all three), but I just didn’t do as well as I’d like. This next semester should be better, I am definitely stepping up my game since I am getting into the stretch of courses that future universities will be looking at (according to one professor masters and PhD programs tend to look a t your last ears rather than the early ones, so since the courses are getting more focused so am I, although I did do well in my earlier classes so its fine).

I am hoping that doing super well in the last stretch will get me into the schools I’d like within the time frame I want.

Anyway I hope this was a nice post to update everyone on whats going on and I look forward to semester 5 posting. I also wanted to get this post out of the way so I can start posting my questions and discussions, I figured it’d be best to do that after making this one.