A New Semester at the U
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Education
Is it weird that I know who Angela Merkel is? Or Herman Van Rompuy? They are the German Chancellor and the the former Belgian Prime Minister now serving as the President of the European Union. Apparently, pretty much all Americans, at least the ones I come into contact with don’t. But, I am a European citizen, so I probably should know these things.
I am now taking a class entitled European Politics in an effort to demonstrate my superior knowledge of a subject to my peers who don’t care either way. Don’t worry though, because I am going to be repeatedly humbled by Dr. Dan Jones in his U.S. Public Opinion and Elections class. This is the professor I had last semester for Political Science/U.S. Government something or other. I can’t remember what the class was called. Which brings up the question, what is Democracy?
Dr. Jones asked us this in out second class a few days ago, and it is an interesting question. There have always been people debating whether or not the United States is a democracy of a republic. Democracy is a government that is run directly by the people voting on certain issues, but we elect leaders for local and national government like a republic would, so what exactly are we?
Hopefully, some of these questions may be answered with the help of my American Civilization class. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? It really is just a class about the history of the United States starting from the colonization of the eastern Atlantic coast up to the second World War. The first thing I learned in this class is the apparently, the Chinese came within a couple hundred yards of the San Francisco bay area, but never bothered to go on the land and check it. Don’t worry though, with the amount of money the U.S. owes to China, they may get a seond chance at owning California.
Last but not least, I am taking a class in World Regional Geography. Again, this is only to demonstrate some sort of superiority over my peers, who don’t care. No actually,I just like looking at maps, I think it’s fun.
