Wageningen Day 20-23 Allison

Sam and I began our class called Behavior and Environment this week. We are taking this class to hopefully get a better grasp on what the educational experience is really like here. The class is taught by Paul Koene and focuses on ethology as a way to quantify behavior to create a better understanding of animals. In this class, we attend lectures discussing behavior and ethology theory and then we work out our own projects concerning a species assigned to us.

The past few days have been spent in a computer lab researching our animal, the Barbary macaque, writing an introductory report, and devising an experiment using our new knowledge of ethograms and sampling. As of this point, we will be observing maturation of social behavior in subadult individuals to try to see if being raised in captivity changes the way macaques mature socially.

With this class, I have noticed that things are much more open ended, and much more responsibility sits on the student's shoulders. Although our advisor holds meetings with us to answer questions and help us stay on the right track, nearly everything comes from our own thinking and there is no one around to make sure we are working when we are supposed to be. I like this method for a few reasons. This method allows for more open thinking and I believe it allows for more creative ideas to be produced. Also, it ensures that grades are not just handed to students, as I feel they sometimes are in U of I classes. All of the work belongs to the student, and there is no one to blame but the student if the work is not at the level it should be. Here, it is all what you put into it.

The downside of this method is that some students in our class were lost on where to even begin. Each group had been flooded with too much information, and were having trouble putting it into a narrow research question of their own. I also became frustrated with the lack of structure at first, but I feel like it really caused Sam and I to work as a team. Without being able to put our ideas together, I think this project would have been much harder.

The education system here from gradeschool on really focuses on individual ability and does not expect every person to be good in every subject. That is something I wish our society could see. I wish that Americans, in education and in the workforce, could see that not everyone can be on top or a leader, and that this is okay. I understand wanting to motivate people, but I feel that the expectations of perfection are too high in our country for anyone to achieve. This is something I hope to bring back with me and incorporate into 199.

Also, people are much "greener" here. It isn't that they preach being environmentally friendly, but the Dutch were just raised that way. Fewer people drive cars, the animals are kept in better conditions, and the need for new manufactured products is not as high here. Dr. Hurley mentioned that they live for quality and not quantity here, and I believe that this is very true. It makes me look at my day to day and I have already noticed significant changes I can make.

I am excited for the weeks to come when we get to go to the zoo and observe our animal. I think we will have a nice time watching our research grow into something tangible.