As I write this, I'm in my last six days of my second year of my bachelors degree, yay! Everyone cheer! I didn't drop out this time! Today, I sat an international relations theory exam, and while I sat there pondering over normative theory, I wondered about how much nicer it'd be to write a blog post than an exam. So, I decided I'd write a historiography of my second year of university; my classes, my assignments, how I did, my favourite bits, all the rest.
For my first semester, I took classes I didn't necessarily want to take, but they were the best of a mid bunch. I had one mandatory class this year - comparative politics. Comparative politics was sort of the bane of my little existence. I had a boring, monotone lecturer, classes with people I didn't like, and the topics just weren't of interest to me, and yet I had no choice. I remember I wrote my first assignment - a blog post, ironically - on Viktor Orban and election interference in Hungary. I didn't get all that good of a grade, which honestly, as a blog post writer, I took a bit of offense to. Maybe I just have something they don't quite see, or maybe I'm simply mid at this. My second assignment was your bog-standard essay on women's political participation. How the environment is overtly masculine, how being present doesn't necessarily mean being represented, and so on. I won't bore you with any more details on that class. Overall, I got a 65, so an upper second class. Hey, considering I barely ever turned up, that's pretty impressive.
By one of my other classes - NATO from the Cold War to hybrid war - I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, it was a neoliberal hellscape by its very nature. I was the only NATO sceptic in any of my seminar groups. I ended up having very productive talks with the lecturer though, who asserted quite confidently that he enjoyed teaching sceptics because it always meant better debate and discussion. You know what, I'll hand it to him. He was a great teacher, who managed to make a class I was dreading into a class I enjoyed, even if it meant roleplaying as a neoliberal 75% of the time. I took it as an exercise in performance arts. My first assignment was an essay - I wrote mine on NATO intervention in Kosovo and the responsibility to protect doctrine, arguing that intervention led to disaster. I did end up with a 65, even being sceptical of NATO in the essay. My second assignment was a policy report; I chose to do mine on drone incursions into NATO territory, specifically focusing on Poland. I went all-out neoliberal champion on this one for the sake of my grade, and it paid off with a big fat 75. I actually really enjoyed this assignment; I got to make little maps and graphics and do fun formatting, which is honestly one of my favourite things in the world. Graphic design is, as you can see, my passion.
I did take one class this semester that I genuinely enjoyed and wanted to take - the strategy and politics of nuclear weapons. This class was unlike any of my others so far in that it was 100% seminar based, without any lectures. It was an intimidating prospect, but I learnt that I thrive in that interactive environment (so long as other people have also done the assigned readings). My favourite thing I learnt about was probably the territorial disputes in New Mexico between Nuevomexicano communities, Pueblos, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, as well as how the meaning of death in Japan was changed by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I also found it really interesting to consider how every war is now a nuclear war - nuclear weapons play a role in every conflict, in that their threat looms and controls what actors in war actually do, not just what they don't do. I didn't do so well on my first assignment for this module - a book report on The Nuclear Borderlands by Joseph Masco (a great book, if you're interested) - I got a bang-average grade of 62. But, my essay, which I wrote on psychiatry in nuclear weapons, I smashed out of the park with a 78. That was when I really realised I'm onto something with this whole "madness in international relations" thing.
After a complete mental breakdown at the end of semester one, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and a lot of new medications to trial and test, we reach semester two. I was (wrongfully) very excited for this semester.
That excitement was because of one class in particular - the past and present of US intelligence. I thought I'd absolutely thrive in this class, being fascinated by all-things covert operations, but oh boy, I was wrong. It's not that the content isn't interesting; I'm sure, if it was intelligible, it would be. But the lecture materials are so poorly organised that it's impossible to make any sense of what's going on, or even to figure out what I'm supposed to be learning about. I actually had a four-hour-long sobbing breakdown over thinking I'm going to fail this class. Now, I'm just aiming to pass. My first essay I was absolutely robbed - I thought I wrote a great essay on the intelligence failure of the Cuban missile crisis, and it turns out I got a 60. I was not happy. I'm currently prepping for my final exam, worth 50% of my grade, for this class. I'm sure I'll report back in July on how it went.
Another reason I was looking forward to this semester was my women and global development class. I was excited to finally get to lean into feminism; something I had studied, and learnt I was good at, in my sociology class in my first year. The content of this module is actually great - I learnt about Pacific Island women and how they're influencing climate change policy, forced sterilisation in Peru, missing and murdered Indigenous women, and a lot more. It did genuinely broaden my horizons and thinking. My only gripe is with the lecturer - a kind woman, for sure, but someone who admitted to not having read her own seminar readings herself, and who seemed to really not grasp any transfeminist theory. Regardless, I have somewhat enjoyed this class - I enjoyed the essay I wrote on Peruvian women's forced sterilisations and how racism, sexism, and classism intersected to create the conditions in which the sterilisations could occur. The exam was a piece of cake - I answered a question on ethical issues we encounter when studying women in the "developing world." I have this lecturer again next year for a class on Latin America, and I just hope that one goes a little better.
That brings me to my final class this year, ending on a positive note, too. International relations theory - a class I initially was dreading. I thought it'd be too abstract, too complicated, and downright boring. I was proven wrong. I learnt in this class that I'm a massive theory-head. I love the abstractness of it, the non-truth of it all. While I definitely took more to critical theories like post-structuralism (well, yes!) than traditional theories like liberalism, I genuinely enjoyed every class I went to. It was fascinating to me to apply theoretical viewpoints to policy decisions, such as doing a realist analysis of what to do about Greenland. I wrote my midterm essay on feminist security and war policy; why security focuses on the state, and not on, say, women's bodies at war. My exam, which I sat just today, was not so much an enjoyable piece of cake. For question one, I had to argue that all IR theory is normative and has moral undertones - a take I, thankfully, agree with. For question two, I had to undertake a post-structuralist analysis of climate change and climate refugees. Not an easy feat, but I think I did a decent job. I hope my lecturer thinks the same.
That wraps up my second year - now onto my final exam (pray for me), and then my final year. It's weird how fast time flies when you're half having fun, half absolutely miserable. To think I wouldn't be here if I hadn't dropped out of a psychology degree. Honestly, thank God. Roleplaying as half of my degree is way more fun.
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