A Connection Between Classes       One of the biggest problems I had in high school was understanding how many of my classes, which demanded a huge amount of my time and energy, were pertinent to the rest of my life. How was Calculus going to mean anything to me once I was out of high school? Was memorizing all of the parts of photosynthesis going to help me later on in life? Or were all of these classes just exercises in memorization, time management, and devotion to things not obviously useful to us? Additionally, what we were learning in one class seemed entirely isolated from the body of knowledge we amassed in another class. Everything was isolated, and I felt as if I was “liv[ing] in fragments” (Forster 910).   When I was choosing the colleges I was going to apply to, I looked carefully at the way the academic programs were structured. I didn’t want to end up going through the same brute, and mostly meaningless, memorization or the utter isolation of the various subjects that I experienced in high school. I looked for interdisciplinary programs that would allow me to take a variety of classes and wouldn’t restrict me the way a traditional major would. Of course, this is what Plan II offered to me.        What I have found especially gratifying about my classes here is how closely some of them connect. Our WorldLit class and my TC class -- the Psychology of Hope and Virtue -- have blended together especially well. Between talking about our learning types in World Lit and our personalities in TC and numerous other discussions and overlaps, I have realized how much both subjects draw from one another.   Additionally, and even more exciting, I have begun to think about the things I’ve learned from both of these classes in the context of my life. Finally, the things I am learning in school can also be applied meaningfully to my real life. The feeling is exciting and gratifying, and I feel as if I am becoming perhaps a more conscious person as I become aware of the connections between my fields of study and between my school work and my life. Like Watt’s description of the ant, “the thing or entity [I am] studying and describing has changed. It started out to be the individual ant [or subject], but it very quickly became the whole field of activities in which the ant is found” (914). I look forward to pursuing this discovery of connection as I take more diverse classes and I hope to continue to integrate what I’ve learned into my life.