Week 3 at the uni...

After looking over our blogs, I realized that not only have I not posted for awhile, but I also haven't talked much about school- so here it goes. I am enrolled in two classes, which is the full-time load for the masters program, and sitting in on another class. Of the two classes that are a part of my program, one has only two students (including myself) and the other has seven students, so I am getting a very personalized education. The smaller class, Bioethics, Public Policy, and the Law, is taught using the Socratic method, which is pretty intense with only two of us and with a topic that I don't know much about. The class and readings are very challenging, but also interesting, so I'm really enjoying it. My other class is Questions of Life and Death, and focuses on the wrongness of killing. Although it is clear that killing is wrong, it is not clear how do define the wrongness of killing using morally significant reasons in a way that permits one to kill plants and animals for food, but that also allows or disallows (depending on the argument) for killing during abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. The last class, that I'm just sitting in on, is an undergraduate honors philosophy class; being a part of the philosophy department might just be the biggest learning stretch for me. It is a value theory class (not sure what that means) that focuses on a population question. Over the course of the semester, we will try to answer one question- is there a moral right to bring a happy child into the world (versus not having a child at all). I initially sat in on this class because the school wasn't sure if my public policy class would continue with such a low enrollment, so this was a possible alternative. The public policy class will continue, but I figure I'll stick with the philosophy class because it's interesting and is related to my degree. All of my classes are seminar-style classes, so they meet once a week for two hours each. One thing that I've found interesting, and quite enjoyable, is that about an hour into the class, we take a tea break. Everybody walks down the hall to the lounge, where we make tea, or in my case, coffee, and eat biscuits. We spend about 10-15 minutes visiting over our drinks, and then we go back to the classroom for the final hour of class. Not only does it give us a chance to refresh, but it gives us a chance to get to know each other without disrupting class.