Having my first last day of classes ever was a weird feeling. With a month-long break I feel like it should be fall semester because I haven’t seen campus in so long. Spring semester always goes by much faster than fall semester for some reason and I hope this year it could slow down for once. I’m excited for my classes to begin even though this semester will be a lot of hard work.

Of course, in all my communication classes we went around the room and introduced ourselves and talked about interesting facts or what we are interested in within the communications major. That didn’t happen in my 70+ max capacity psych class, though. Being a double major is always interesting. I get to see how two different departments work and see the differences (and similarities) between the professors. I’m fortunate in the fact JMU has amazing professors in every department. I am biased towards the professors in SCOM and psych though, because the professors are truly phenomenal.

Yesterday in my psychology of learning class, my professor spent a good chunk of time going over his history with school and how he got to where he is today at JMU. He story consisted of not doing so well his first few years as an engineering major, finding a love for psychology and changing his major. At JMU, he teaches psych of learning, research methods and a senior seminar class. He also has the opportunities to conduct research he is truly interested in. After finding his own passion for psychology and teaching, he studies what makes other people passionate and why they are passionate. He also strives to instill a sense of passion in his students and after one day in class with him I already know it is going to be an inspiring semester to say the least. His enthusiasm for psychology of learning made me interested and focused, even though classical and operant conditioning are not my favorite subjects in psychology.

Today, I had a SCOM professor give similar advice to the class. I feel like passion and enthusiasm are strongly emphasized senior year. It is not that in previous years professors haven’t talked about being passionate, but I’ve noticed as we get ready to leave the JMU nest professors are trying to get us to get over grades and lean more towards actually learning the material and wanting to know more. I have had numerous psychology professors say “If you focus on learning the material, the grades will follow.” Because ultimately, my grades won’t matter one day. People will want to know what I learned, not that I got an A in advanced public relations writing.

So this semester I’m going to focus on learning as much as I possibly can from my classes as well as my professors. This semester I also want to get to know my professors better than I have in the past. Especially my professor studying passions, I hope he can help