In high school, I took two classes that were similar: Freshman year it was called Values, and senior year it was called Spectrum. Instead of taking three individual classes for English, religion, and social studies, my high school opted to combine these three. For two hours a day, three teachers were in the same classroom. It may sound strange, but it worked because those three subjects overlap–you can’t study one without the other. It also helped draw connections and relationships between things, and therefore helped us retain the information.
After months of studying, I’ve come to a realization: ICO is of one big spectrum class. I came to this conclusion after I started studying for my second exam of the week. While I was going through the first few sets of notes, I was surprised to find that a lot of it was review. Yes, there’s usually some review from classes I took in undergrad, but this took it even further. Everything that I’d just learned for my Monday exam was being applied for my Wednesday exam. Though this was the first time I realized it with such clarity, it actually happens quite frequently. At least once a week, you’ll hear a professor reference another class we’re in, and relate the topics. I’m truly surprised and impressed at how well the courses overlap.
I find the overlap in courses extremely helpful because sometimes when I find the new material difficult, I can look at it from a different view that I learned from another class. It’s a lot easier when you’ve had prior exposure to the material before applying the next step to it. This year has been a puzzle so far; you get a little bit of it every day, and each day you can make out the big picture just a little bit better.