Emily Kennedy

The first class I had with tom king was Global Econ. T hat class for me, was game-changing in my Global Studies experience at PC.  I remember one of the first days of class we were in a semi circle (as usual) going around the room debating some grandiose question and I had something to say and tom could sense it.  I guess I was shy at this point in my Global Studies career and I just couldn’t butt in to the conversation.  tom called me out, saying something to the effect of, “Emily, what do you want to say?”  At first, I was a little embarrassed but I soon learned, that was just the beginning of ways in which tom would challenge me and strengthen me, as an outspoken activist.

Global Econ is focused on debates.  It was super daunting because the whole premise of the course was to perform various debates throughout the semester which required intense preparation and then each team would debate based the affirmative and negative of each argument.  Our first debate topic, unfortunately really relevant these days, was on whether the U.S. government should institute a policy where all companies with federal contracts must only purchase American-made goods.  I remember our team spent hours preparing in Slavin — actually I think that was the debate where all teams happened to be by the fireplace in Slavin preparing until late in the night.  It was super fun actually.  I remember on the day of the debate, when we went into the Harkin’s Hall debate room (that semi-circular meeting room with microphones…), I was intimidated and the super professional room did not help my nerves — but someone had brought in cookies and brownies, per usual (another typical weekly assignment) so that brought me down to Earth a little bit.

When it was my time to go up to the podium, I had my notes and then my classmate and I (now I can’t remember who it was ahhh) began duking it out.  I can’t remember who “won” that debate but all I know is that it was totally fine!  It was soooo not as scary as I thought it would be, there with all my GST classmates/friends in the audience, I would check my notes as I began my dialogue but really we had prepared all night so it was fineeee.  Boy, did my confidence shoot through the roof.  That was a turning point in my time at PC and I really think, from then on out I was much more outspoken within the Global Studies classroom and at PC in general.  Global Econ changed me and forced me to not only think more critically about global problems (by having to debate both sides!) but also forced me to not think of the official-looking buildings and the fancy microphones that represent authority, bureaucracy and the status-quo, as something to be daunted by, but to stand up and speak out.

I will admit that now, three years out of the major, some aspects of each class are starting to blur and mesh together but Global Econ was one that I do remember and that Junior year, was a turning point.  I also will admit that it did take me some time to adapt to tom’s unstructured structure and the fact that the syllabus is constantly changing and guess what, we have to make the syllabus!  And if I’m being honest, I don’t think I ever fully adapted to it.  But, if I had any recommendation for any student of tom’s, it would be don’t ask for extensions in doing the assignments.  Once a date is established by everyone, just do it and get it over with.  We wasted a lot of time just going over deadlines and re-assigning deadlines.  There’s so much to discuss that this does not seem very important in the long run.  But other than that, be patient with yourself in adapting to the “shock” as tom called it, but know that you will learn a lot and be challenged immensely.  Enjoy!!