Final Blog Entry

I have learned so much from taking History 172 this semester. At the very beginning of the school year, i thought that i would not be able to handle the heavy course material and work load. In fact, it was the only course that i remember thinking of dropping at the beginning of the year. Professor Dabel, I have to admit was very intimidating at first and thought her to be unapproachable. But later on, the class got to see her true thoughtful and witty character. I thankfully stuck with the course and it ended up being one of the most satisfying courses i have taken so far at CSULB. History 172 is one of the most satisfying courses that i have taken because it was one of the most challenging courses in my schedule and I had made it to the very end, dispite my feelings at the very beginning of the year. Not only had I learned about early American history, but i had learned many other useful things such as how to study for an exam, how to paraphrase, how to footnote, and the steps to writing a proper research paper. I also gained some technology skills from this course because of the online blogs. Before I had taken this course I had never written a blog before in my life. Believe it or not, I didnt have a Myspace then either. I am so proud of taking History 172 because it had taught me many useful skills that will help me throughout my college career, thanks to Dr. Dabel. So i thank Dr. Dabel for carring enough for her students and to take the time to do what other professors would have never even considered.

The Peer Editing assignment that was assigned this week, i thought to be very helpful in writing the history research paper. In other courses that i have taken, like in high school i had found that the peer editing another's paper was somewhat helpful, but not completely necessary. I thought that it was good to get a second person's oppinion on my paper and for it to be checked for grammatical and spelling errors that were not noticable to my own eyes, but I also thought that was the extend of a peer edit for a paper. What i liked about this peer edit assignment was that we had a checklist of all the things to look for and it was a very thorough editing. The highlighting and circling of certain objects was really helpful for that all the corrections made on the paper did not all look the same, and it was easy to distinguish the different corrections made. It was also helpful to see what the professor would have looked for on her own if she were grading your paper. I thought it was a very useful excersize.

Marriage for Love. Who would have thought?

What caught my interest in this week's lectures was the change of views about the constitution of marriage and the change of the woman's roles in the home. It is still hard to believe that marriage was looked at as a business arrangement rather than a promise of eternal love. Although marriage today may not be treated with as much of the traditional form of romance and commitment; what with the concept of divorse and the hardships that occur in a marriage now-a-days, but at least now, one has a choice of whom one wants to marry. Whether it being for love, lust, or even money. But it is interesting to think that durring the time of the Second Great Awakening that family values just started to change and woman were looked at more as companions and more of an equal. It is hard to think how our society and our lives in gerneral would be so much different if our whole lives were run by our male husbands rather than for it to be an equal partnership.
It also interested me to how the woman's role in the home and family started to gear towards taking care and providing for the children. To think that children were looked at as little adults rather than young youths who have not experienced much in the world and are constantly discovering the things around then as well as themselves is rather mind boggaling. It is also interesting that it was mainly the upper-middle class were the main class to be making all the reforms at this time.