Ellie Cochran is a senior at UA, majoring in Religious Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies with a depth study in Environmental Management. She will be graduating this May and plans to pursue a Master of Science in Family Financial Planning & Counseling.

Over the last few months, in the final semester of my undergraduate degree, I have been participating in an independent study in the Department of Religious Studies, which includes sitting in on the Honors Introduction to Religious Studies course, taught by Prof. Emily Crews. In addition to sitting in on two different sections of her course each week, and reviewing many of the same readings that I did in my own intro course three years ago, I have also regularly met with Prof. Russell McCutcheon and discussed new readings on pedagogy in the humanities. While there has been quite a bit of overlap between the kinds of things I learned in my introductory course, taught by Prof. Merinda Simmons, my experience of sitting in again on this 100-level course has been surprisingly different than what I expected when the semester began in January. Continue reading →