Conclusion - Week 15

This class has been a great learning experience for me. When I first took the class it was just the most interesting thing to me on a list of option electives. Now that I have taken it, I can honestly say I am glad. There is so much history I had no idea about and applying the things I have learned about in class with actual experiences in sport have been a great discovery process! Before taking this class, I knew a little bit here and there about a sport or a bit about a certain person. Now after taking the class, I am confident that i could actually carry on a conversation about those topics. I am also glad that I learned more about racism issues in things like the Redskins or mascots. That was just the start of the semester but I had never considered the Washington Redskins to be a racist name for. This class has opened me up to so many similar ideas and concepts. I don't think I could pick just one thing that will be most useful to me from this class, but I'll try. I guess I would say the video clips were most useful. It's great to sit and class and learn about some of the things I just discussed, but the videos are a great source for backing up that information. The supplemental information in the videos, especially the history ones, were great because you are hearing what we are learning about from people who were actually there.
Keeping a blog during this class was great! It was such a good way for me to be able to reflect further on topics that we talked about in class and allow me to really go into detail about my opinions. Especially since a lot of times in class I know we would get to talking about something and then lose track of time. This gave us the opportunity to reflect on things even if we didn't have time in class. My blog also allowed me to think about concepts and how they could be related to my life and my personal experiences.
As far as ethical presentations go, I think the majority of the ones that I saw were very informative. It was another way to get a little more perspective on an issue that we may not have otherwise had the time to do in class. I think ethical presentations are also something that other students and myself like because it means that there is more for debate and for you to draw your opinion from what is presented. Even though our opinions were hardly discussed during the Q & A portions of their presentations, I know that if there was something I felt strongly about, i would take the time to use my blog to give my opinion on the issue.
Even though my career is event planning, I think i will be taking a little bit of everything from this class. Maybe someday i will work in a position where I will be planning events for a sports related company and I will wow them with my impressive history of sports! But really I think that learning about the historical and philosophical developments in sport are important to move forward with developments in the future and I now feel prepared to do so.