Today I was able to interview a good friend of mine and a Washington State University student, Julian Hsu. She began her college academic career by taking college classes at her local college while still in high school. She is currently at her first year at Washington State University after having been at Bellevue College for two years. This allows her to have junior status currently in college because of the number of credits she has established so far. Having already been in many college courses with a variety of teaching styles and professors, as well as now being at two different collegiate institutions I felt she would have an interesting perspective on the varying sizes in universities as well as the personal attention from her professors.
I began my conversation with Julian by asking her how she would describe her education at Bellevue College. She responded by saying that it was “laid-back”. She said that while at this college she was able to manage her own time by organizing her class schedule in a way which fit her daily routine. Which often meant not many classes and not a very stressful environment for learning. Along with this she was able to contact her professors easily whenever necessary so that she would be able to meet with them about confusing material or other issues she was having. Julian also told me that the professors were easily accessible because class sizes were small, being about only 25-30 people in each of her classes.
I then asked her to compare this education to the education she have received at WSU. She said that Washington State required her to be constantly focused on her school work and aware of the instructor’s office hours and times of availability due to the large class sizes, being from around 300-500 students per class. The classes are also harder in her opinion at WSU and it is also more difficult to seek help, therefore putting more stress upon her for learning on her own time. She mentioned that the classes are harder both because the material is harder as well as the professor being unable to stop and take time in the lecture to answer questions. Also there are so many students in the class that it is difficult to interact and get to know the professor on a more personal level.
My conversation began to take a turn off of the education path after I had asked her what classes she was currently taking. She said biology 102 (General Bio), Chemistry 102 (General Chem.), Criminal Justice focused on violence against women, and Biology 140 (Nutritional Science). I then proceeded to ask Julian about her Criminal Justice class because of the sensitive topic which was being taught. I was curious about what specifically about violence against women was being taught to by her professor. She began to describe to me what she was learning in this class, beginning with talking about a study her class had reviewed talking about battered women. “Battered women” is a term used to describe women who have undergone any kind of abuse from a “batterer” which can be anyone, but in this class the focus is on when the batterer is male. She continued to talk about why women who are being abused by men tend to not seek help from catalysts (prevention programs). Women tend to not do this for many reasons such as: they blame themselves for the battering (believing it is their own fault and they did something wrong to deserve the abuse), they deny the magnitude of the event, deny their anger and wish to retaliate, feel unable to set limits or fight back, and/or want to defend the man.
I then asked more personally about how she felt about the topic of women abuse. She felt that women abuse, because it is so common and some women will even live with the abuse all of their lives, should be brought to more attention to society because there are many programs which are available to help women overcome these hardships. My conversation with Julian finished by her reading me a quote that her professor had given to her class recently. “Battered women grieve not only their loss of self, but also the loss of their abusive partner.”
By: Jake Leinas