Hi! My name is Alizey Sultan, and I am a second year student. I am planning (and hoping) to major in Political Science and Philosophy with a minor in Law & Society. My goal is to become a lawyer, who specializes in family law because I like the idea of working with family issues and…corporate law was too hard. A really great course that I recommend, for anyone interested in learning about human development and how family and the environment you grow up around affects you, is FMST 210. Also, I’m also originally from Pakistan but I moved to BC when I was two years old, so I’ve grown up learning about two different cultures side by side while also learning two different languages at the same time.

I didn’t really know what to expect when signing up for this course because I mainly did it with the intention of fulfilling my literature requirement. As I read the course description I was really excited that it was based on a contract because that meant it was up to me to reach my desired grade. Plus it gave me the chance to read books, which I haven’t really been able to do in a long time. After being forced to read The Leviathan for POLI 240, books based around race, sexuality, imagination (etc.) are a welcome breath of fresh air.

One thing that really stood out to me in the introduction video and changed my perspective on the structure of the course, was how with these readings we aren’t doing “history”. When I first read the different book descriptions my mind jumped straight to the idea that some of the books were going to be about how the different political movements and issues that were occuring at that time, affected people’s lives. I was too focused on how the contents of the book described, matched what was going on in history during that time. However, after the first lecture and finishing the video I began to understand the idea of “play” more. I also decided to “ditch” the literary analysis mindset that was embedded into me from high school english and instead adopt the mindset that a book can just be a book and doesn’t have to have every line dissected to find the “meaning”.

I am excited to start reading the books I’ve picked out and just learn about how literature can vary across cultures and that despite the different time periods, the books are interconnected in some sort of way.

Questions to think about: Do you ever picture what the setting or characters look like when you read a book? Is there a particular setting or mood that helps you read better?