Online Education Review

Online Education Review

My experience with this online course has been very enjoyable. This is my second online course. The first online class I had was a history class I took through a community college. I enjoyed the course, but it basically consisted of two tests and three papers. It was much less work than this course, but I still managed to learn a good amount. This Epics of India course has been an awesome experience for me. I have enjoyed the creativity needed to write the Storytelling posts as well as my storybook. The feedback I get back on my writing is so helpful and it was also beneficial to my writing to go through other peoples writing and critique it. I feel like I'm usually too nice, but it was good to read and see what styles works well. The feedback from the professor and the resources she had available to better our writing was incredible. I also learned a lot about creating and managing a website and blog which is such a useful skill. Overall my experience with online classes has been excellent and I would certainly be willing to take more if given the opportunity!

Blogging in the class was awesome!

Gen. Ed. Review

Gen. Ed. Review

I have really enjoyed the gen. ed. courses I've taken at OU. Originally I was in the honors college so a couple of my gen. ed. classes doubled as honors. I really enjoyed those classes because they had such small class sizes, and were very challenging! I think the humanities Gen. Ed. has been a very important part of my education because it forces me to broaden my education rather than taking a bunch of science and electrical engineering classes. I've really enjoyed digging into topics I wouldn't otherwise take the chance to learn about. The science and math gen. ed. requirements have also been beneficial, but were also extremely necessary for my degree. Overall I've had very good experiences with gen. ed. at OU, even my massive 100+ student chemistry class I took freshman year!

Large classroom

College Writing Review

College Writing Review

My college writing experience has been fairly technical as an electrical engineering major. My freshman year I took expository writing, which gave me some exposure to more creative writing. I really enjoyed the class because the topic was myth and hero, and I got to write about super heroes for my final paper. I did fairly well in the class, but writing is certainly one of my weaknesses when it comes to grammar and structure. Creativity was never a problem for me though, which made it really fun! Besides expository writing I have written several technical papers in my engineering courses, which I took very seriously because it's so important for my future career. I like technical writing because it's easy to write scientific papers that are very structured, and it's enjoyable to try and convey scientific ideas well! I was also a co-author of a journal article for some undergraduate research I did this past summer. The article was about pattern and polarization agile annular slot antennas. Writing that was a great time to put in the work and discover many interesting things and then collaborate with a graduate student and writing it up! I wish I had taken a class specifically about technical writing. There is a course that many engineers take for a professional elective, but I had already fulfilled that elective requirement so I didn't take it! This class was also a great writing experience for me. I hadn't had any classes that gave me the opportunity to comment on other peoples work, so it was great to be able to do that. I also really enjoyed being able to be so creative with my writing and I had so much fun with the elephant story book. Having the professors detailed feedback was also amazing and really helped refine my writing skills. Overall I'm very pleased with my experience with writing at OU.

Typical College Writing Experience

Week 14 Reading Diary: The End of the Mahabharata

My favorite part of this reading is Yudhishthira's dream. It was very touching to see him journey with his brothers, their wife and a dog. Everyone dies, but he continued on with the journey showing great compassion to the dog. Due to his compassion Yudhishthira is able to go to heaven and hell as a mortal, which is super crazy to think about! What a great experience that must have been for him to see heaven, and how terrifying it must have been to go through Hell!

Angel showing Yudhishthira around Hell!

I also found it extremely honorable how Arjuna ends his warrior life by bringing his weapons to the fire god Agni to be burned! The Mahabharata ultimately ended with the Pandavas leaving the world, leaving Parikshit as the last remaining heir of the Pandavas.

Week 14 Reading Diary A: The End of the War

This reading was much less intense then last weeks, but still had a fair amount of battle and death. It was such a relief to see Duryodhana defeated, but it was very frustrating to see Ashwatthaman become the leader of his army. To me it seemed like Ashwatthaman was operating solely out of rage and revenge, and that seems like a poor person to put in charge of an entire army! Ashwatthaman ends up wiping out basically the entire Pandava army (besides the brothers), and it led to the war being stirred back up once more! I really enjoyed reading about the war taking place in the previous reading, but at this point I wasn't really enjoying it anymore. Ashwatthaman was stoking a flame that could have easily died out, and the war ended. I'm glad my favorite character Arjuna came in with his incredible weapons to take on Ashwatthaman for the final fight. Arjuna is able to cancel out Ashwatthaman's weapon and Vyasa and Krishna recall the weapons and the war ends up finally coming to an end. There are funerals for all the powerful men that died in the war which really bummed me out because I felt like the war was so pointless in the first place!

Bhima defeating Duryodhana

Week 12 Reading Diary B: The Pandava's Exile

My favorite character thus far in Buck's Mahabharata is Arjuna. To me he seems to be one of the most manly characters, and is extremely honorable. He is already an extremely skilled warrior, but in this weeks reading he learns musical talents as well as dancing. On top of that Indra teaches him the use of divine weapons, which I think is crazy because Arjuna is already one of the most skilled warriors aside from Karna. He showed that he was honorable by refusing the advances of Urvashi, and she curses him which turned out to be something that would benefit him for his thirteenth year of exile. Arjuna just seems to have everything going for him and is certainly my favorite of the brothers!

Arjuna the Mighty Warrior!

The only other part that I really enjoyed in this reading was the tale of Savitri. It was such an incredible story of love and the bravery that can come from loving someone. She chose a husband that she knew didn't have much time to live, but loved him dearly. When he died Yama came for his soul and Savitri was so courageous that she wanted to follow him. Yama granted her a wish and instead of something selfish, Savitri thought to cure the blindness of her father in law! Then as a second wish she requested 100 sons for her father in law, and as a third she requested 100 sons with her husband. Yama said she would have to forfeit half her days and give them to her husband, which she gladly did. This story was so touching, because not only did Savitri show incredible love and courage, but she was incredibly selfless!

Week 10 Reading Diary B: An Epic Battle

This reading was extremely interesting to read for me. I always enjoy the action packed moments in books, so this great scene of war was awesome. It was certainly my favorite part of the Mahabharata. Although the preparations for war were basically complete, Yudhishthira wisely desired one last plea for peace. I truly grew to respect Yudhishthira as a leader, and admire that his heart wasn't for violence unless it was a last resort. The plea for peace fails and a war begins between the Pandavas and Duryodhana. The battle is intense and my favorite warrior is Arjuna. Initially Arjuna was worried about fighting his old Guru Drona, but Krishna inspires him with a divine prayer and Arjuna is ready for battle. Arjuna fought valiantly and ended up killing Bhishma, the commander of Duryodhana's army! Bhishma's death leads to Karna joining the fight. Arjuna's son is then captured and killed which leads to Arjuna going on a rampage and killing Jayadratha in an act of revenge! Arjuna's strength is incredible and was amazing to read about. I was certain he would continue to excel in this war, and perhaps even bring an end to it all. Ultimately Arjuna defeats Karna in an intense one on one duel, which cripples Duryodhana's army and essentially ends the war!

Karna and Arjuna fighting

 After the great battle Yudhishthira becomes king and eventually all the Pandava's died off leaving only the child of Abhimayu, Arjuna's son, to continue the Pandava line.