Author: Rachel Silcox

Location: Utrecht, Netherlands

As this exchange opportunity is through Christ College, in the Netherlands I have been taking humanities courses. Now that I am only about a month away from the end of my semester, I thought it would be a good time to describe the impact these courses have had on my time here at UCU. My three humanities courses are Origins and Crises in the Global Economy (economic history), Introduction to Law, and World Philosophies. All of these courses have underlined why I came to UCU in the first place. Reflecting back to my first blog, I wanted to come to University College Utrecht because of the community. It is not like any other study abroad experience where you just immersed in a culture, but instead UCU is a true international community. In my classes, this international setting is only stressed more.

In my economic history class, we do not focus simply on the effects of globalization for the USA or for Europe, but for the globe. We have talked about places from Zambia to Thailand. I consider myself well versed at least in US History, but learning about the economic situations of so many countries was eye opening. Not because I didn’t know such complex things happened abroad, or that I was ignorant to the rest of the world before, but now through this class I have started to see how everything that happens in a certain country or economy has repercussions all around the world. Though we may not realize it, every dollar we spend affects people around the world. Just like UCU, this class has shown me how the economy is an international community too. Even though when we buy one gallon of milk at the local grocery store we may not feel connected to the world, the mechanisms it took to get you that gallon of milk are in fact global, involving everyone from to China to New Zealand.

Learning about the judicial process in other countries in my Intro to Law class has also been a great experience. Whether in the US, UK, the Netherlands, or another country, it is cool to see that even though a system may be different, it can still work very well. Different types of law have developed in history, but that doesn’t mean one is necessarily better than another.

However, my favorite class to demonstrate this international atmosphere is my World Philosophies class. On the first day of class, my professor pointed out the title. She said, “this class is called World Philosophies, not World Philosophy for a very good reason. I will not present you with the truth about a topic called World Philosophy, but instead a worldwide array of different philosophies.” Her point was that there is not some overarching structure of World Philosophy that already has been established. But instead, each person we study and each viewpoint we read about, just contributes a piece to a global compilation of thought. All the philosophies we look at are just different ways of thinking that have been published about. They are not all encompassing, but instead represent a variety of different mindsets about how to exist in the world.

This was powerful to me. This class is not absolutely authoritative, but instead inquisitive. It is where questioning minds meet to discuss their own ideas. For example, as part of this class, we held a dialogue between a Zen Buddhist, Dogen, and Plato discussing what we thought was the ultimate goal in life (See link below). It is wonderful to adapt and take on someone’s ideas as your own. I had to argue as Plato in this role. Instead of seeing his concepts as external to myself, I was forced to internalize them and ultimately I understood them better. Through internalizing others’ arguments, we grow ourselves and when we are faced which such different opinions like those in an international setting, we grow all the more. Through being at UCU and in my international classes, I have grown in my understanding towards others. I hope by reading my blog, you too can develop a broader understanding for others, that only an international environment can grow. Understanding others is so important in the world, especially now, and UCU’s classes have helped my understanding flourish.