Mid Term Letter

Reflective Letter #1

Dear Marlen,

I would first like to admit that I have not been as diligent over the last week or so about staying on top of my work as I expect myself to be, and as I know you expect of me. I apologize for this, but, substantively, am all caught up as far as class is concerned at this point. I think I have a real strong case of newly-single-last-semester-leavingfortheAirForce-itis. Its alright though, I have resolved to make sure I do what must be done and am refocusing on my work.

As far as the class has been progressing, I have enjoyed the group I share my ideas with in class, I find them to all be intelligent, interesting people. I feel like this has been a very positive experience and I have been in contact with a few classmates outside of the class time to work out various issues. The environment you cultivate as a professor enables me as a student to let down the wall that is traditionally up in a lecture setting and be more willing to explore concepts and ideas. I have witnessed this in others as well and I think that it speaks to your effectiveness as a communicator.

As far as the work is concerned, I cant say that I have too much to complain about. One thing I would suggest to change is the way we have to look up third party documents for information like the annotated bibliography or the proposal and outline. I do understand the purpose of the exercise but, believe it or not, I really (sometimes) just want to be told how to frame my ideas (yes I said it, but with a bunch of caveats). I think my issue with this stems from my desire to make sure what I am handing in is correct and up to standards. I really don’t like to have to go back and redo something because I misunderstood the point of the project or had a slight variation of the expectation.

I have found the process of essentially molding our research papers to be very cool to say the least. I am able to see this thing taking shape before my eyes and honestly, I cant wait to see where it ends up.

I am enjoying this class and can not wait to make practical use of the research I am conducting. I look forward to our meetings in the future.

Sincerely,

Dan Burkhardt