Being one of the big kids

I'll admit, I was getting a little worried about how grad school and I were going to mix. I have three classes:

• INAF 5209 - Conflict and Development
  
• INAF 5606 - Indigenous Peoples and Cultures
  
• INAF 5704 - Human Security
  

My Conflict and Development class was pretty intimidating for the first two lectures. The prof seemed to expect us to already be experts on the subject, and me, with my Canadian/European History background was certainly not feelin' the topic. Some of the readings made sense to me, and even enlightened me, but overall I was still feeling out of my depth. Talking to my classmates though, I realize I'm not the only one. A lot of people were freaked out by how intense the first lectures were. I'm heartened by this.

As for my Indigenous Peoples and Cultures class, I was a bit leery as to how much I'd learn in it. Our prof has admitted that he's an economist with next to no background in the subject, and that he's only teaching it because he was the one who suggested the course and therefore couldn't back out of it. He does seem amiable to new ideas and is interested in what the students have to say though, so that's a plus.

I did make the mistake of self-identifying as a Native Canadian though. And I made it clear (or so I thought) that I have no real ties to my culture, and that many people know more about Native life than me. Unfortunately he seemed to gloss over this fact and in the first lecture, kept asking me random stuff about being Native. I mostly made up answers or told him flat out that I didn't know the answer. LOL

My last class though, Human Security, is making up for everything else. I'm specializing in Human Security and Development, but to be honest, when I chose that specialization, I didn't really know what it meant. Our first "real" lecture was spent discussing just exactly what Human Security was. (FYI, the general definition is "The freedom from fear, and the freedom from want and need.")

Our prof is hilarious and speaks really really fast when he gets excited (which he seems to be all the time). His summary of the lecture was to go over his conspiracy theories of what's happening in the field of Human Security. He generated a lot of student discussion, and made the process easier by paraphrasing what we're trying to say. (That's a huge lifesaver for me, because sometimes I'll be trying to make a point, but I get confused and start rambling on, so he's able to get the general point I'm trying to make and clear it up.) He set us against one another, because it seemed like there were three different camps of thought in the classroom (and I created one of them).

Oh, I'm also amused to note that I only read 3 of the 4 readings for the Human Security class. While I was waiting for the class to begin, my classmates were complaining about the fourth article and how it was confusing and weird. As we nearing the end of the class itself, our prof suddenly mentions the article as well and says something to the effect of, "What did you guys think of that Brysk article? Wasn't that the most useless, ambivalent, and stupid thing you've ever read?!" Ha ha, glad I didn't waste my time with it then.

So yeah, those are my thoughts about my classes thus far. They're scary, but manageable I think. And I have to admit, I do look forward to that Human Security class.