Reflection

Now that the semester has ended I have time to reflect. Looking back on the class I can say with authority I have gained tons of knowledge. There are always aspects that, once finished you wish you had done better on, but overall I had a great experience with my class. In the space of a semester I went from knowing essentially nothing about the middle east to being  well versed. More important than just facts however, I have have picked up the ability to intemperate material particularly in the world of International relations, and detect perspective. This skill is increasingly useful as once learned you can apply it to nearly everything. It allows you to have a very different view than someone else on the same events without necessarily disagreeing with them. Opening my eyes to various perspectives on the same events has really shown me the complexity of nearly any issue, It also has shown how flexible history is to interpretation. This is a skill I picked up in lecture and practices in rifling through countless sources while attempting to write my paper on Iraqi Identity. This practice has enforced in me a life lesson of  being skeptical of conclusions reached in any work of history, poly sci, or International relations theory. I believe this skepticism is the most valuable attribute I have taken away from International Policies of the Middle East.