In my eight semesters of college, I\u2019ve taken twelve and a quarter classes that are either explicitly about environmental issues or that combine them in some way with the humanities (and, over the course of those eight semesters, have used three different platforms to view my course history \u2013 I\u2019m liking the transition to myPugetSound!).\u00a0 I\u2019ve read William Cronon\u2019s essay \u201cThe Trouble with Wilderness\u201d for class at least four times in the past four years and definitely did not appreciate it the first time I read it in my freshman writing seminar.\u00a0 However, I\u2019ve fortunately had a decent amount of time to correct that oversight on my part, and it\u2019s now probably my favorite assigned reading I\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n
So I was just a little bit excited to learn that William Cronon himself was coming to campus this semester.\u00a0 I\u2019m taking one final class this semester in the environmental policy minor program, and one of our assignments was to attend at least one of the lectures.\u00a0 Well, duh.\u00a0 Like I wouldn\u2019t be doing that anyway.\u00a0 He gave two lectures last week about environmental history, on which he is a leading thinker and actually sort of the creator of that area of academia.\u00a0 I also attended his lunch Q&A session, which is where I learned that he dropped out of school as a sophomore to try and write a novel.<\/p>\n
What I found fascinating was how he successfully combined his three passions \u2013 writing, history, and wilderness \u2013 over the course of his academic career.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had multiple conversations with my cousin, who\u2019s a computer programmer, about the importance of interdisciplinarity in the real world and therefore in academics, so it\u2019s always satisfying to see that endorsed by established, eminent people and not just a couple of 20-somethings.\u00a0 Regardless, it\u2019s a little late in the game for me to drop out of school to write a novel \u2013 but I\u2019ll keep that plan in mind for grad school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my eight semesters of college, I\u2019ve taken twelve and a quarter classes that are either explicitly about environmental issues or that combine them in some way with the humanities (and, over the course of those eight semesters, have used … Continue reading