Freshman year was something I never saw coming.
Whatever my conception of college was is now scratched and disposed of, and a much more nuanced understanding of myself, the people around me, and the forces which have shaped myself have taken its place. By far the most significant force of change was my last-second enrollment in the Humanities program; both the people within the program and the units it is comprised of have forced me to construct a completely new idea of myself. In this space, I have decided to engage with everything that has caused this sudden, all-encompassing change, and in order to do so, I have decided to develop a focus on an area that repeatedly caught my interest throughout the course of the semester: empathy. Whether it has been in my struggle to attain it from those around me, my attempts to utilize it, or the ways that it became highlighted in nearly every unit we have explored so far, it is the only thing on my mind. Thus, this portfolio has become an ode to the most important discovery I have made: the potency of empathy.
Professor Quillen has inspired me to allocate some of my portfolio for the poems I have written while reflecting on what has been the strangest year of my life. So, though I am sharing thoughts and feelings that are not always easy to share, my “something new” is dedicated to my struggle with the desire for understanding.
My campus event commentary, revised essay, definition of h/Humanities, and unit posts demonstrate the multiple different echoes of empathy and understanding (or lack thereof) throughout the course so far. Lastly, I explore how empathy is the cause of revolution.
If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear them (ersimard@davidson.edu). Thank you for reading!
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my peers and Humanities fellows for both inspiring and assisting me while I designed this portfolio. I would also like to sincerely thank my professors for everything they taught me this semester, and for all of the opportunities for academic and personal growth.
