Going back to the beginning of this semester, I clearly remember my reaction when we were introduced to the concept of blogging: WHY DO WE HAVE TO DO THIS? The time consuming effort wasted in doing an entire reading and with great difficulty, completing 250 words twice a week, acted as a burden on my already monotonous weekly schedule. It took a while to understand the benefits of these blogs, but when I did, blogging has become a blessing rather than a burden.
One thing I do not credit to myself is the ability to write well. The idea of planning ones essay, then structuring it, then concentrating on the world limit, the tone and grammar, and then restructuring again. Finally finishing it off with the most difficult part of this course: The Chicago style of citations. I never thought I would be able to cater to all these essay requirements and shunned off the possibility of even trying, until I actually noticed a marked improvement in my ability to write. Writing blogs is more of a breeze now, where the 250 word minimum limit seems too little to get ones point across. Today, I think I have strengthened not only my ability to structure and improve an essay, but understand the necessity of writing well if one wants to make a future in social sciences. This newly discovered ability of mine to write coherently is the most important thing I am taking away from this course.
Even thought writing is the most important thing I learned in this course, that does not mean I am discrediting the world of International Relations. Having taken Intro to International Relations only last semester, the ism concepts were not new to me. I felt an introduction to the subject was not enough, the reason for which I took Theories of International Relations this semester. Now, not only do I know the tenets of each dominant ism, I can also compare and contrast the applicability of every theory to real life political situations. Concentrating on current world affairs such as Benyamin Netanyahu's speech, and the USA-China conflict, we were able to analyse the situations and apply our own understanding of the course to them.
This course has kept me a bit confused, but thats great. Finding myself to be somewhere in the middle of realism and constructivism, I will now pursue to educate myself in these ism's even further, so i can finally decide which school of thought I belong too. So till then, I categorise myself as a social realist, and till I have enough education to give one up, I will always believe in the effects of both the international political arena, and culture/identities on the actions of international relation actors.
I agree that this course did not provide us with definite answers, but rather made us think for ourselves. It's good that we were exposed to multiple theoretical perspectives as we can now chose which ones to side with.
ReplyDeleteWell my focus has always been on building fundamental skills - reading, writing, and critical thinking. I'm glad that you developed your writing skills, as this will prove to be more beneficial to you in the long run moreso than anything else you've gained from this course.
ReplyDeleteAs a final note, you can be a "social realist" or really whatever else you want from an IR perspective. The beauty of IR is you don't have to wed yourself to a particular perspective - you can pick and choose, which I think is ultimately the most beneficial approach to take.