Returning to school was at first humbling, but soon became a self-esteem booster when
I realized that I am capable of learning new and interesting things. The topics I
studied in Humanities revitalized my enthusiasm for learning. My schoolwork became
an adventure into different times and places, both current and past, in an effort
to understand our world better. Humanities is a great way to learn about history,
social and political events. The literature, art, and film media transport the student
across time frames of our existence and locations. I found it fascinating! I look
at myself and the world differently now.
I started at DVC as an Allied Health Services student, simply fulfilling the Humanities
requirement for transfer. The film, fiction and criticism course taught me that love
and appreciation for the arts is not only fun and interesting but contributes to personal
growth and understanding of the world around us. I learned how to analyze, interpret,
and understand popular culture and how we can learn about the human experience through
the expression in the arts. I quickly changed my major to Humanities and have never
looked back. I believe every one of us must study the Humanities in order to understand
ourselves better; for the self and the world.
This Journey at DVC has been one that I will cherish forever and during this time
I was fortunate to be in a Humanities class. The class I took was for American Popular
Culture, and it was way more than I expected. We analyzed different time periods and
the popular culture that surrounded that time. We covered topics that ranged from
Charlie Chaplin to Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” to how advertisements are put out in the
world to how different groups of people are projected in movies, television shows,
and news. I learned new film concepts and ways of looking at hidden messages in television
shows and films. It allowed us to engage in conversations about various topics that
we covered, bounce ideas off each other, and develop different interpretations of
things we covered in the class. Overall, this was a great experience for me and allowed
me to look more in depth at things rather than take it at face value.
I always had an interest in the arts, so I thought a Humanities course would be a
perfect way to fulfill a GE requirement. However, my Humanities classes at DVC have
been so enriching that I hope to pursue a Humanities minor in the future. I was able
to explore my love of film, art history, and literature all in the same class, and
was introduced to works I had never been exposed to before. For example, I probably
wouldn't have gone out of my way to watch a silent movie in my free time, but Modern
Times has since become one of my favorites after watching it in one of my classes.
More importantly, though, I was able to not only discuss and analyze these different
works, but understand them in the context of the time period in which they were created.