Memoir

Memoir

Why I Chose the BIC

I first heard about the BIC when I came to visit Baylor for orientation. I remember my mom and I were strolling through the BSB, when we happened upon a table of colorful books. I love reading, so I was initially drawn to the table and its contents. The student standing at the table asked for my attention. I realized these books weren’t just there for show. The young man proceeded to explain to me what this array of books had in common: they were all books I would read if I were to join the BIC program. I don’t remember what he said after that. I suppose he continued on to say that the BIC is an interdisciplinary program with an emphasis on learning about different religions and cultures in order to expand the horizon of Baylor students. (That and knowing that there was a unique alternative to the regular general education requirements was enough to sell me). Whatever is was that he said sold me, because I applied that day. I found out the same day that I had been accepted. I was ecstatic! It seemed hard to get into, although, I was naively rejoicing over something I knew very little about. I had no idea what a drastic difference there would be between my high school workload and the typical BIC load. Nevertheless, I felt proud for getting into what seemed to be a selective program. It didn’t seem as if there were hoards of people rushing to join, which was curious…

Once I started my time in the BIC program, I got an interesting taste of the different flavors of people here at Baylor. Many of my classmates seemed normal, but there were several intimidating intellectual snobs. Similar to many college freshmen, I hardly knew what studying was when I came to Baylor, in spite of leaving high school with a high GPA. BIC gave me a rude, but necessary awakening. I had never known such a harsh course load with so much reading. I quickly realized that I had to choose between getting a more than satisfactory amount of sleep (7-9 hours), or finishing the readings for all of my classes before class time. I often chose the former, reading the beginning and end of my texts, or consulting online summaries. I didn’t speak up in class much during those days anyway, so I didn’t worry much about contributing. I did worry when in-class quizzes started popping up (pun intended).

Though my other first year classes were challenging, none were challenging in the same ways as my BIC classes. World Cultures, Rhetoric, and Social World were extremely foundational and formative for my academic success now. I struggled with time management a lot freshman year. I was overwhelmed by the responsibility of creating my own schedule and being disciplined enough to decide when I would read, socialize, sleep, and work out. Now that I’m a senior, I’ve finally got that together (most of the time). As a freshman, I remember being so troubled by some assignments, that I would elect not to do them.

I almost neglected to present my third speech in my rhetoric class. I was terrified, even though I presented the first two well, because my classmates were going to turn in critiques of my presentation. A few of them bragged about being in debate, which made me feel even more anxious about presenting. I had been going to the counseling center for awhile at this point in the semester for help in my perfection-or-bust attitude. (I felt paralyzed by fear so much that if I thought I wasn’t going to do well on something, I simply wouldn’t do it). I met with my professor about my anxiety surrounding this assignment. She was patient and understanding, but encouraged me to do it anyway. It was a lot easier said than done, but with tears, prayer, and encouragement, I did it! Afterward, I collected my critiques. I folded them up and put them away. I took them home with me over break and stashed them under my bed. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that they’re still there collecting dust. 

I don’t know when others’ perception of me became so important. Looking back, it is so clear how wrapped up I was (and still am sometimes) in the opinions of others. During my freshman year, I dressed up for class almost every single day. I believe when you look good you feel good. (I also believe I might run into my future husband at any moment, and I’d like to look good for him). I took a lot of pride in being the girl with great style. We had Dapper Thursday in my rhetoric class. When the guy who was organizing it was giving examples for what to wear, he said, “girls, just dress like Tyler.” That basically made my life. I eventually got over myself. Wearing flats to class in the BSB everyday from Collins is very impractical, I realized. Similarly, I am getting over my fear of the correction of others. I recently had to present my very own commentary on a passage for my Latin class. Yes, my Baylor experience has come in full circle. I spoke for 10 minutes, and turned in my paper to my professor. He gave me my paper with his comments and the critiques of my classmates last week. Since his opinion is most important, I checked his page first and saw that I made a nice grade. As excited as I was about that, I still felt scared to see what the rest of the class had to say. For the sake of moving past the past, I looked over them the other day. A friend had to sit there with me as I did it, but I faced my fear of confronting the judgment of others. The critiques were all positive; only a few people gave me an average grade. I am glad to have opportunities such as that, because it is refreshing and important to get insight from peers. Otherwise, I only have one perspective, myself, and I’m biased because I’ve lived with myself for 21 years.

In my 21 years on this planet, I’ve had the chance to experience a lot of different cultures and meet a lot of different people. My dad worked for the corporate sector of the Boy Scouts for 20 years. The opportunities to move up in positions within the Boy Scouts often involves moving to a new location. My dad is great at what he does, so we have had the blessing of moving several times since I’ve been alive. I was born in San Antonio, Texas, then we moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, then Kenner, Louisiana, then Las Vegas, Nevada, then Woodland Hills, California, and just before I finished high school, we moved to Keller, Texas. The different experiences I had living in such unique places, and often so close to big cities helped me expand my horizons at a young age. When I was little, my parents were intentional about getting me socialized, which meant going to work with them, and being actively involved in the community and at church. I knew about pleasantries such as “no and yes ma’am/sir,” “pleasure to meet you,” and shaking hands from a very young age. I got to experience the culture shock of growing up in the South for 7 years to starting junior high on the West Coast. I also had the reverse experience when I finished high school in southern California and came back to the south for school at Baylor.

My parents and I almost always lived in suburban neighborhoods, but also close to big cities. I have been fortunate enough to meet people from many different cultures just from moving around the country. I had friends from several different ethnic backgrounds in Louisiana. Most of my friends in Las Vegas were Filipino. I found the widest range of ethnicities when I went to school in southern California. Los Angeles County is a little melting pot. In spite of this, I wound up falling into a group of mostly Jewish girls. We spent a lot of time together, and I became fascinated with their culture. I learned about Shabbat dinner, and attended many of them. That tradition is one of my favorite things about Jewish culture: the family togetherness is beautiful, and I appreciate that they spend quality time together over dinner Friday night and Saturday-day without electronics. (Their use is prohibited on Shabbat according to the Torah). I also enjoyed the familiarity of singing the same prayers every week. With all of that being said, I felt a sense of comfort when we talked about Judaism freshman year. My parents moved back to Texas the summer before my senior year of high school. I moved most of my stuff with them, and moved back to California to finish my senior year there. I ended up staying with a couple of my Jewish friends and their families, so I feel like I’m part Jewish now. Nevertheless, BIC has allowed me to learn about other religions and cultures I had only ever heard of before. I most appreciated it when we went to the places of worship (temple, mosque) and we got to directly experience/observe the ritual practices in action.

In spite of how enriching the BIC was for me, its quick pace was definitely overwhelming. I remember feeling very frustrated my freshman year as my roommate would sit around watching t.v. and hanging out with her friends, getting A’s by cramming the night before every test. She never seemed to have homework, and if she did, the assignments were simple things she could do in her other classes. That was certainly not the nature of the New York Times assignment or our many research papers. I would complain to my other friends about how much time I spent reading and writing every night, but they didn’t understand. My BIC friends did, though. I could count on them for a good old fashioned pity party, but also support when I needed to finish a paper, or sometimes a long reading assignment. In the end, I feel like a winner; BIC’s heavy course load helped me ease into upper level classes. Meanwhile, my friends who had such light classes freshman year didn’t know what to do with themselves when they started taking 3000-level plus. I, on the other hand, was over-prepared. In fact, I took my first upper level psychology class my sophomore year. My professor was quite impressed that I was taking his class “so early,” and I did well in it too. The class was simply readings from the textbook, article readings, four article reviews, a term paper, and exams. Thankfully, this is how many of the BIC classes are set up, so I was set up for success. I finally saw a practical perk of being a BICer. 

Why I Chose to Stay in BIC

I had a friend I made through BIC and our mutual major, psychology. She and I would mostly have pity parties together. Mid-way through freshman year, she decided to drop the BIC. I was shocked! I had certainly fantasized about dropping out of it, but I never planned to do it in reality. Actually, by the time I thought I had had enough, it was too late. It wouldn’t have made sense to drop out being so far along. This girl, however, jumped ship in time. I didn’t see her very much in general, but I made a point to follow-up when I saw her a few weeks after she told me the news. She said she was so much happier because she had a lot more free time since leaving the BIC. I was happy for her, and yes, a little jealous, but I felt like I would invalidate my integrity by leaving. I also enjoyed most aspects of the BIC. I told non-BIC friends that I felt as if I was getting more out of my experience at Baylor than other freshmen. I got to take field trips, spend a lot of time with similarly open-minded people, learn from a cool, well-chosen group of professors, and find out what upper level course loads would be like before the fact. Once I rationalized it a bit, it was much more of a blessing than a burden. So, I stayed.

What I Gained from the BIC

The choice to stay in the BIC was an excellent one for my overall scholasticism. One of the most significant ways the BIC has helped me has been in academics. I can’t even explain what my study habits were like in high school. I believe they were nonexistent, at least until I took an AP art history class my senior year. Even then, they were only starting to come together. I had to do poorly on a lot of assignments and fall behind in my classes altogether before I created and carried out a plan of action. Then, after carrying that out, I would get lazy and slack off. I have been a procrastinator all of my life. Only recently did I develop the willpower and necessary skills to overcome procrastination. I have realized again and again how freeing it is to finish something early. There is no stress because it is already finished. It is sad, though, listening to my classmates panic the night before the paper is due; while I try not to smugly bask in completion. I certainly don’t lord it over anyone, I just pat myself on the back for a job well done ahead of time. I remember I once tried to convince a group of complaining fellow BICmen to start early, and they basically said starting early wasn’t their style. They were happy enough in their late-starting ways. It is definitely hard to do, but in my opinion, it is worth it to push myself in that regard. Unfortunately, finishing things early isn’t always possible.

Thanks to BIC, I am well-prepared to take on the real world – in part. The BIC has made me a much more informed consumer of information. I now know how to critically think about what I read, look at both sides of the issue, and choose one for myself. If I come across information that seems too good to be true it is a good idea to check the source the article or news segment cited. It is also wise to read from multiple sources since avoiding bias is nearly impossible. I learned this from Dr. Tatum who has us read about current events in the Middle East in The New York Times and Aljazeera. The BIC atmosphere is a lot like the real world because of the diversity in opinions, cultures, ethnicities, and attitudes. Meanwhile, the Baylor population as a whole is not very diverse. Spending time in the BIC with such an eclectic group of people has given me a more realistic perspective on the many different types of people I’ll meet post-graduation. My good friend, Adrina Pawlak is a philosophy major, minoring in leadership, while I am a psychology major, minoring in business administration. In spite of our similar interests, there are few things at Baylor that would bring us together. On that note, I think it is kind of hard to generalize BIC students. There is a lot of ethnic and cultural diversity. I know several pre-med track students, but there are also a lot of University Scholars and quite a few of us without titles to our degree plan. We have sorority girls, frat boys, and people who would never be caught dead in Greek letters. There are bold, outgoing people, shy, soft-spoken people, and everybody in between. Yet, we all come together to be awesome at yoga, or to learn about the Good.

Speaking of awesome, open-minded people, I have met some of my favorite people at Baylor through the BIC. One of whom was my neighbor my freshman year, the aforementioned Adrina. She is really bright, funny, kooky, and a solid friend. I genuinely appreciate having her around. We both opted to live in Collins instead of the Honors Residential College, so our support system looked different than most BICers. There were a few girls down the hall and around the corner from us who were in BIC. We would share copies of The New York Times and encourage each other against weariness in paper-writing. Adrina and I now work together on staff for one of the residence halls on campus as Community Leaders. I wouldn’t have known her as well if we weren’t in the BIC together starting our freshman year.

In addition to gaining great friends, the BIC has helped me create intimate relationships with my professors. Before coming to college, I had heard of people going to their professors’ office hours to talk them, but only once had I heard of professors and students meeting outside of the academic atmosphere to get coffee. Once I classes started at Baylor, I heard about Dr. Hanks talking to students at Common Grounds. This blew my mind. I thought professors were stuffy, old, and only cared to sit in their office or the classroom until it was time to go home. At least if they were going to socialize it would be with other professors. Thankfully my eyes were opened to the fact that professors are people too, and most of them do what they do in celebration of learning and out of love for students.

My perspective on professors also changed when I walked into my first rhetoric I class. I surveyed the room, comforted when I realized I recognized some faces from Large Group. Everyone was a little tense as we waited for our professor to walk in. He emailed us a week or two before school officially started, encouraging us to start speaking correctly (in the proper tense and with good grammar) as that would positively affect our writing. You can imagine my surprise when a petite, young (really young) woman walked into the room, announcing that she was our professor, Mary Ziehe. She then explained that she was a graduate student working on her dissertation about Beowulf. There were exclamations of excitement from my classmates. “Hey!” “I know that one!” “Cool!” Next, she had us go around and introduce ourselves, including our favorite movie. It was during these introductions that my class began to dig its deep bond. As a collective, we had similar taste in movies: “The Godfather,” “V for Vendetta,” “The Lord of the Rings trilogy,” etc. Our class was good about getting our work done so we had more time to visit and ask Professor Ziehe about her life. We found out that she graduated from Baylor and the BIC program. It was nice to know that people make it out of college (and the BIC) alive and mentally stable. The professor I mentioned before, who met with me about my near inability to present my speech was Professor Ziehe. Over the course of my two semesters in her class, we met for coffee once or twice because she scheduled class paper meetings at Common Grounds, but also just to chat in general. She basically lived (actually still lives) there. She is really clever, spunky, and has a lot of fortitude. I really admire her, and I’ve learned it is important to glean from your people you admire while they’re near. Thus, I made a point to meet with her for coffee a few times outside of our paper briefing sessions. Life got a lot busier after my freshman year, but we have managed to meet a few times more since then. We actually met just a month ago. I told her about the academic journey to come, with my Latin commentary presentation fast approaching. I said I was little worried, but I also had a presentation in a business class that I knew I would deliver well. She encouraged me, saying she was delighted to see how I am thriving in that arena, talking about getting up and speaking like it’s no big deal. She said that especially because of how terrified I was to give that last speech freshman year. I didn’t know this until she said it, but apparently, my speech was one of the best in the class. What a confidence booster! Moreover, this friendship with Ziehe humanized all other professors for me. Since my freshman year, I have made it a point to get familiar with my professors. I don’t get coffee with all of them, but even going to their office hours has become normal and enjoyable.

How This Class and the BIC Have Drawn Together My College Experience

At times, I used to wonder if my professors conspired to teach the same thing. While I can’t say that BIC has significantly influenced my major, I would certainly say my major has influenced what we learn in the BIC. As a psychology major, I have learned about many theories over the years. Some of these theories have been influential enough to appear in many introductory level classes. We reviewed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in Examined Life, Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective in a Cultures class as well as Social World.

This class is another tenet of my Baylor experience coming full circle from my freshman year. When I came to Baylor, I only knew one person from high school and that was from the one year of high school I completed in Las Vegas. I had no idea about what churches or people to seek out. I went along to church with my Welcome Week leaders for the first two weeks. After that, Collins, the residence hall in which I stayed, had Church Rush. Through this program, residents could join the featured Community Leader at her church on her assigned Sunday. I went to University Baptist Church with one CL, and loved it so much that I attended it all year. I wanted to get involved in something at the church outside of Sunday service. I saw that they offered a yoga class on Sunday nights. (UBC is very with it). I attended the first Sunday that it was offered and eventually rode with the girl who led it every week, Hannah Starkey. My experience with yoga prior to that was very limited. I would follow early morning yoga sequences on t.v. at home sometimes. My dad bought me a Pilates mat the Christmas before I started at Baylor, so that’s what I brought to UBC yoga every week. I knew enough about yoga to keep up, but I also learned the most about breathing and different poses through this class. Hannah had never taught yoga before, but she was athletic in general and had a determined spirit. She came equipped with her great big book of yoga poses, and encouraged us to do our best to push into hard places without hurting ourselves. This was definitely a stretching time of growth for me. I struggled to execute several poses. I looked on with envy as one member of our group did the headstand and crane pose effortlessly. Now I can proudly do them too, but I have more to the story before we get to the present. The amount of people in the class, and the members of the class varied week by week. Though at the time it felt like a sacrifice, I am really happy that I went to almost all of the classes because it helped me develop my pose-completing abilities significantly. I’m also glad I got to get to know Hannah better. Her athleticism and her gracious, easygoing, loving attitude rubbed off on me a little.

Now, let us fast forward to my junior year of college. During the spring semester, I took Baylor’s “fitness and relaxation” human performance class (also known as yoga). At this point, I continued practicing many of the poses I learned from Hannah when I would stretch before bed, or after working out. I also practiced with yoga videos when I would go home for break, found poses in fitness magazines, and followed sequences from Tara Stiles and YogaJournal instructors online. As a result of keeping up with the practice, I got to pick up close to where I left off my freshman year at UBC. At first, I found Shane’s class a little too easy. He took things pretty slowly, but the pace eventually quickened. I felt challenged by yoga again, and it was welcome. At times I felt uncomfortable because a few people in the class didn’t take it very seriously. I wondered if they felt overshadowed. Soon, I myself felt overshadowed by this girl who must have been a gymnast or a ballerina, because she was tall, slender, and extremely flexible. We usually practiced next to each other in class. She was very intimidating. I never talked to her, but I was pretty jealous because she seemed to get deeper into poses than me, and she was also gorgeous. I basically couldn’t stand her, but I didn’t want to stand down in this “competition” (in my head). At the end of the semester, Shane asked for volunteers to attempt the headstand. Volunteers had to go to the large open, cushion-y mat-covered side of the room to do so. I didn’t want to feel alienated and possibly make a fool out of myself in front of the class, so I rooted down right where I sat. After a few minutes of awkward silence, several brave souls made their way to Shane, one of which was Bendy Barbie. You win, I thought, as I watched her extend into a headstand after brief instruction from Shane. When I got over myself, I started silently cheering the volunteers on, willing them to do well and not hurt themselves; they were doing a great job. I was impressed that they went over there to do something out there and new like that, and even more impressed that they all did it so quickly. I thought I would never do such a thing.

Recently, in our yoga and philosophy class, I got frustrated and discouraged about my lack of ability to do a headstand. Then I realized I just needed to tweak the positioning of my arms and squeeze my glutes a little more. Voila! I did it, and I’ve done it again and again. Until our last class, I had only done the headstand against a wall or my closet, but on the last day, I did one in an open space (with some help from Megan). The other day, I thought I’d try it completely unassisted when I was on a mat at the SLC. I was doing it, until I lost my balance and flipped myself. I’ll have to make quite a few mistakes before I can do it well. As I learned with my formerly poor study habits, this is true with more than just yoga.

What I Learned From This Class

I learned from this class that progress in anything worthwhile takes time. I remember in some of our classes early in the semester, Dr. Schultz alluded to the fact that we would soon do headstands and other advanced, challenging poses. We were having trouble mastering downward-facing dog, and staying balanced in tree pose. How could we possibly do a headstand so soon? Somehow, it happened for all of us. In the same way, I remember feeling hopeless as a freshman as I looked at my degree audit. I was more than 100 credits away from graduating. I didn’t come in with any hours, and I hadn’t mastered any languages enough to test out of classes. How would I possibly graduate in four years? Look at me now: I’m graduating in May! I have come a long way, and I am proud of all this progress. Now there are new mountains to climb: finding a job for my gap year, finding a counseling program that is suitable to me, getting enough money for my own car. I am thankful for the many opportunities to accomplish great things in college, including getting a degree, because it feels easier to accomplish one thing when I’ve already accomplished a few other things.

Suggestions for Changes to the BIC

I know I’m not the only one, but I really enjoyed The New York Times assignment. It’s my favorite paper, and I am glad people who never would have thought to pick it up had the chance to be exposed to it. I know reading such great writing regularly positively contributed to my own rhetorical skills. It didn’t take me long to complete an article. The process was only long if I waited until the last minute, or waited to do all five at once. I would get mentally fatigued if I tried to do more than 3 articles at a time.

Now that I think about it, there isn’t much that I would change about the BIC. Things look rosier in hindsight, but I wouldn’t have bonded with my classmates if we hadn’t gone through such a rigorous academic experience together. I would, however like to talk about class discussions, and the information incoming freshmen receive about the BIC. One significant detail that sets BIC apart is its emphasis on discussion. It always felt like a struggle to get people to speak up in large group. I know this is true, because I refused to volunteer. I can count all the times I spoke up in large group over the course of my BIC career on one hand. My marketing professor this semester would have us turn to our neighbor, or break up in groups and then we would share with the class as a group, or we would just be encouraged to share what we discussed. This could ease students’ anxiety about speaking because there is a group of people who know what they are saying to back them up. Besides, it is less scary to share thoughts with 2 or 3 people than 200.

In my organizational behavior class, I learned about realistic job preview, a tool used to increase retention rates in jobs. It involves giving potential employees positive and negative information about the position they are looking for in order to achieve the best fit for the employee and the company. The BIC might have a stronger retention rate if there were honest video interviews online where most people seem to sign up for the BIC and the Honors program. Our BIC representative at orientation could have pamphlets called, “The Truth about BIC” with the good and the bad as reported by BIC seniors. I would have appreciated an honest look, or even more information in general about the program. [I don’t have any suggestions for changes to the yoga + philosophy class. I love the way class time is structured, the books we read, and our blog discussions].

What I’ve Learned from This Class and the BIC

Practically, I’ve learned a lot about yoga and its origin. The yoga that I have been doing is commercialized asana. I did not realize that yoga was not originally meant to be exercise. It is a great workout, especially in vinyasa form. At the beginning of the semester, I said I was not a fan of philosophy, but I genuinely found the Bhagavad Gita and The Yoga Sutras interesting to read. Yoga has such a large following and a long background. It feels really cool to be part of such a legacy. I’m happy I got to become even more informed about it.

As one of my favorite movie characters says, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around every once in awhile, you could miss it.” Although Ferris Bueller isn’t the best role model, he is right about this: reflecting on the past is very important. I am thankful for the Examined Life classes, because those professors encourage introspection. We are moved through school so quickly; it is an intense 4 years. One has to be intentional about looking back as there isn’t much time for that until the end. This class has allowed me to really think about where I have been, where I am going, and how I feel about what I am doing with my life. One of my favorite things about the yoga practice is that it has taught me how to be mentally present in the current moment. Learning to breathe deeply, focus on a point in space, and center myself to stay balanced in a pose has helped me bring my awareness from what I need to do or haven’t done to what is happening inside of and immediately around me. Physically speaking, I have become a more graceful person because I am aware of my positioning in space. Now that I think about it, the BIC has made me a more aware person in general. I am considerably better informed about current events, world affairs, and other cultures than when I came to Baylor as a freshman. It has been a long process, but I am proud to say I made it through the fire as a sharp piece of metal thanks to my refinery, the BIC.