Phuong Vy
Suzanna Jacobs
Huma 2300
7 Aug. 2013
Reflection on Huma 2300
The purpose of this class was to educate student about some of the most influential
religions in the world. Not only did we learn the history, leadership, and beliefs, we also attended
some of the services in the local areas. The fieldtrips to the religions enriched our learning by
experiencing the services, as well as getting first-hand information from the members.
I wanted to take this class because I wanted to learning more about my religion,
Buddhism. I am a Buddhist but because I do not understand Vietnamese writing too well, I had
no idea what the text that I was reading most of the time. When I do go to my local Buddhist
temple, I just make out some phrases about Buddha’s journey meeting people and giving some
advice to people. I knew that that wasn’t going to be enough for me, even though I already like
the religion a lot. I remember months ago I was chatting with a member of a Christian bible
group and she asked me what I knew about Jesus Christ. I told her that I had absolutely no idea
what kind of person or symbol Jesus was for the Christian community, as well as the world. I
didn’t want to sound ignorant or disrespectful because my sources where not reliable.
What I wanted from this class is to learn about the history and the meaning being some of
the practices and rituals that religions do. It will help me connect with other people from
different religious background and make them feel more comfortable towards me. In other
words, this class will help me break some social barriers.
My overall experience was the class was great. I didn’t like the idea of taking fieldtrip at
first because I thought it wouldn’t help lot. It turns out that these services were really engaging
and informative. I really appreciated some of the people who are involved helped the students
understand more about the text and talk about important aspects of life. In class, we have a lot of
fun discussions that relates to the topic and modern subjects. I enjoyed the slides that follow the
development of the religion and why it branches or changes over time. Because it was during
summer semester, we went way too fast and there were some information that I could not grasp
well enough. The quizzes were a good way to refresh information about the religion. Some of the
free response question were usually easy and make student do critical thinking. If students attend
classes and do honest amount of reading and work, they would enjoy this class. The instructor
always encourages questions. What I would like to see more in this class is connection with
religion and its current practice. This would help me understand some controversies within the
religious groups instead of watching Fox, or other unreliable new source.
The class was overall enjoyable. The fieldtrips were the best part of the class. Learning
about religion help me become more understanding towards others and I feel like I can make
connections. I would highly recommend this class to anyone, because they might get more from
this class than the credit and a few facts about some religion.