Conclusion (Derek Miller)

By: Derek Miller

My favorite part of this semester in Sport and Gender class was all of the great discussions we had as a class.  The discussions were my favorite part because it gave me the opportunity to hear other peoples’ opinions on controversial topics.  Often times, professors stand in front of the class and lecture without ever opening the class up to discussion.  I greatly benefitted from the in class discussions because some of the opinions of my classmates were informative.  Another awesome part of the in class discussions was hearing the personal stories from Dr. Spencer and the rest of the students in the class.  As a result, I feel like I gained knowledge about certain issues that I will be able to use in the future.  I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed the in class discussions, but I will just add one final thing.  The in class discussions show how diverse a class is.  I remember in our class we had someone who read bodybuilding magazines, while the rest of the class didn’t.  One of the funniest moments from class this semester was when Dr. Spencer thought the writing on the board was Japanese, but Marcus corrected her and said it was Chinese.  When Dr. Spencer has the in class discussions it’s almost like everyone in the class is teacher, and that is what I enjoyed the most, and where I feel I learned the most.  All of the readings from class offered a ton of useful information.  “Cool Pose” and the article about Kobe Bryant both offered great information about the way black male athletes are viewed in America.  I also enjoyed doing the presentation.  I had a great group who was willing to step outside the box and do a “mock draft” presentation.  My entire group bought into the idea and I feel Josh, Marcus, and Anthony did incredibly well.  All of the other presentations were also informative.  I liked learning about the women in extreme sports, as well as the payment differences in the major sports.   it was interesting to see how much different tennis is!  I want to be a football coach, so I feel like all of the information in this class was useful.  Imagine this, 20 years from now I could have a player that is gay that is thinking about coming out.  This class informed me about the possible actions I could take as a coach.  Honestly, other majors should be required to take this class!  Business majors could greatly benefit from the information in this class.  

Thank you for a great semester!