#Seminar Reflectionnnnn 4

Content that we discussed:

In Seminar 4, ELLA discussed topics related to “whether immigrants should fully adopt their new culture” and “what are your reactions when facing a culture that you can’t understand.” We also talked about religion, rights, and how to define whether a culture is “correct” (benefits people and society) or not—for example, the act of women covering their heads in Muslim culture. We came to the conclusion that we should be powerful enough to change bad culture (and even changing bad culture that does not relate to our own lives matters a lot).

My performance:

I got a 7 in this seminar. Throughout the seminar, I gained a lot of interaction and “back-and-forth” debates with other students. For example, I debated with Eliza about the “purpose of religion.” I suggested my opinion on this topic as “religion should exist to make people feel good,” but Eliza rebutted my point: “If you are a serial killer, and you feel good when you kill people, your religion only benefits you while harming others.” I also offered perspectives such as “religion is a cover for people’s acts.” To conclude, I think I proposed good opinions, dived deep into the questions, and interacted a lot with my classmates.

The leaders’ management:

The leaders of this seminar were Eric and Rhett. They proposed good questions related to the topic “When in Rome…” They did not use a countdown since we planned to spend 4 classes on this seminar. However, we only had half the time in reality, due to the science fair and other activities. This resulted in not finishing all the questions that the leaders posed (e.g., we did not finish the question about the Babel fish and language barriers). I suggest that next time we should plan our time and be sure about how many classes we are supposed to have for the seminar before we start. This will help a lot in answering all the questions.

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