Hello, my name is Griffin Frendo and I am a computational data science major. This is my second year at MSU. I am from a small town in Metro Detroit called Clawson. I enjoy everything Detroit and Michigan State sports. Outside of class, I enjoy playing video games and spending time with friends. I also have a twin brother that attends MSU and is an environmental engineering major.
Week nine is very familiar to me. My major, data science, involves a heavy dose of data analytics. This is exciting to me because I get to incorporate history sources, something that usually is not talked about (at least not yet), and something that I am passionate about (my major) for this class. This was something that I was not expecting for this class. Week ten is also very interesting to me. Visualizing things (such as data) is also a very big part of data science and once again, I am excited to incorporate my knowledge of data visualization with history sources
Week seven is kind of worrying for me. One of my weaknesses as a student is that I am not as creative as I would like to be. Also, when analyzing history, artifacts, in particular, it can be a bit tough for me to wrap my head around some symbolic things. I am very good at analyzing numbers and statistics but analyzing symbolic figures, such as artifacts, can be a bit tough for me at some points.
Online classes have been pretty crazy for me. Being an engineering major (or any major for that matter), learning career skills that usually take hands-on learning, in person, is tough. I think the university has done a decent job of moving all the classes online. I just hope everyone wears their masks so I can be back in East Lansing next semester. Most of my classes are flipped classrooms. This basically means that the lecture is prerecorded and when we come to class we work in groups to solve problems. I think this is the most effective way to teach STEM courses online.
Overall, I am excited to be in this class and I am looking forward to the rest of the semester.
Hi Griffin, thank you for writing such a thoughtful and reflective post. I think your educational background in computational data science will bring a very unique perspective to this course. When we get into some of the more analytical conversations involving data, I will look forward to your insights! As for week 7, one of the great things about art is that there is not really a “wrong” answer. I promise it will be more fun than stressful!
I think the idea of a “flipped classroom” is really interesting, and not a common approach for humanities courses. I do hope, though, that meeting synchronously provides students some structure and the space to share thoughts and questions. I really look forward to hearing more from you!