MarcFriedenberg.com

Fall 2002

  • Independent Studies (IST 296)

    Credits: 1

    Instructor: Benjamin Eisenberg

    Registrar’s Description

    Independent Study

    My thoughts: This was part of the Quality Team program run through the Schreyer Institute for Innovation. I was one of five students of the IST 497H class who worked with our TA Ben to provide feedback on how the class was progressing. We met each week to talk about the preceding week’s class. We also wrote surveys for our fellow students to complete online. We then studied the results and presented them to the instructor. For this, I earned one credit. I hope to be able to participate in another Quality Team in another class someday, because it made me understand the class better even as I was giving feedback on it.

  • Honors Globalization Trends and World Issues (IST 497H)

    Credits: 3

    Instructor: Cheryl Achterberg

    Registrar’s Description

    The objectives of this course are that students will approach local, national, and international problems with an understanding of how global trends-such as demography, environmentalism, resource depletion, and the shift from an industrial age to a knowledge era-influence policy making. Through increasingly complex cycles of intensive research and role-playing, students will learn to seek out the agendas of various parties to any negotiation and to take initiative and leadership in negotiating conflicts of interest among the various branches of government or business within a nation, among allies facing an international crisis, among ethnic and religious factions, and among competing perceptions within a corporation. In a typical crisis scenario, students will take on the roles and responsibilities of U.S. government policy-makers responding to a foreign policy challenge under the guidance of research staff and senior Scholars at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In groups and as individuals, students will conduct research and discuss trends for countries such as Mexico, China, Brazil, and Russia in order to propose strategies at the national and international levels. Students will participate as apprentices in the mission and goals of the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “to inform and shape selected policy decisions in government and the private sector to meet the increasingly complex challenges that leaders will confront in the next century.” Students will gain an understanding of the three means used to achieve this mission: “generating strategic analysis, convening policymakers and other influential parties, and building structures for policy action.”

    My thoughts: I consider this to be my “main” class for Fall 2002. It was the only one not revolving around numbers or computers; it was my only class that really required reading; it was my smallest class; it was taught by an impressive group of TAs as well as the Dean of the Schreyer Honors College; it involved a trip to Washington, D.C. and the delivering of a fairly comprehensive policy presentation; it was the class that required the most from me in terms of writing. I genuinely enjoyed this class and might conceivably want to TA for it at some point in the future. I learned a lot about how globalization is complicating politics, defense, and business. Our trip to Washington was really the signature event of the year. We spent several days at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, presenting our policies and then working out various scenarios. We also heard from a number of superlative speakers. After the trip, the pace slowed down and we began work on our policy papers. This class made me think about pursuing a minor (or perhaps even a major) in political science.

    Documents

  • Honors Calculus and Analytic Geometry (MATH 140H)

    Credits: 4

    Instructor: Scott Parsell

    Registrar’s Description

    An introduction to differential and integral calculus: functions, limits, derivatives, differentials, integrals and applications. Supplementary topics may be added at the discretion of the instructor and according to the backgrounds of the students.

    My thoughts: I transferred into this class after one day at regular Calc because I wanted more of a challege. I got just that. Although the general design of the course was similar to that of my high school Calc class, the level of detail and the degree of independence was far greater. We had ten problem sets throughout the semester. Each contained three of probably the hardest math problems I’ve ever been presented with. These problem sets constituted 30% of the semester grade - the other 70% came from 3 finals (10% each) and the final. I struggled initially, but got progressively better, and did very well on the final. On the whole, it was an excellent class - not that I’m necessarily interested in studying Calc again…

    Documents