By Joseph Gonzales
This school year, McPherson College has changed the way Sophomore Seminar is taught. The reason is because in the past years, there have been countless students who fail the class and get nothing out of it. There has been slander all over campus about this class because it is a requirement by the college in order to graduate.
How the course is different
This school year, Sarah Wood is the professor with Charles Snyder assisting her. The class is every other week on Tuesday at 8:00a.m., and it’s now in Brown Auditorium where the entire sophomore class is learning about the future and how to plan for it. Recently, Wood had the classes do a survey for Sophomore Seminar to figure out what she can do better to implement the material to students. The results of the survey are 70% of students find the course relevant to their future, 80% of the students feel they are learning the material, 79% believe the presentations are helpful, 80% said the online modules are useful, 71% believe the assignments have a positive correlation to the material and 69% said the reflections are beneficial to their career path. From these results, we can conclude that the majority of students are finding Sophomore Seminar to be beneficial to their degree.
McPherson Student speaks on the course
Jack Southern shared what his thoughts were by stating “from what I heard about this course the last couple of years I was dreading to have to take it, I was told countless students had failed and they were not really getting anything from taking the class. Whenever I heard it was being redone with a different professor I was relieved, I feel like the class actually will benefit my future from the assignments we have been doing such as time management or learning how to lead. I am happy to take this course even though I had my doubts.” Sophomore Seminar is important to McPherson College because it’s a requirement to graduate. It’s no longer just a busy work class that the school but rather, it now helps students to better achieve their full potential. This class will affect all students that go to McPherson and it will be around to stay for years to come.
Credible Information
I obtained this information by talking to students as well as taking the course myself. I purposely did not take Sophomore Seminar last year because of all the harsh things I heard about it, but now that it’s changed and I am required to take it I no longer see all the negative points to the class. The statistics in the beginning of this story are very recent in fact Professor Wood emailed us those facts on October 11, 2024. If you have any doubts about this course don’t be afraid, there are professors here to help you become the person you want to be. The school along with the professor wants to uplift you, not tear you down.
