Summer Class: The Amazon

It’s more than halfway through summer already. It seems only like yesterday that Portland was bombarded with rain and gray clouds. Students tend to take the summer off after an intensive year of school, and it still applies at the university level too. But for some of us, we like to take a class.

I took one summer course last year and this year I did so again. While I was studying about the Cold War last summer, this time around I found myself exploring the Amazon with one of my favorite professors: Mr. Smallman a professor in the International Studies Department. Depending on the course a summer course can run four to eight weeks. In my case, it was four weeks for the first half of the summer.

I learned that many of my assumptions of the Amazon were misdirected. I thought that the Amazon had, until recently, been untouched and pristine from human beings. Yet we learned that native tribes have not only resided in deep within the Amazon for hundreds of years, they also molded it and shaped it to degree. Interesting fact: there are literally pink colored dolphins that live in the Amazon river.

While I do like to take one summer course, I also like to take a break before I am full-time student again. I believe education is a long-life pursuit and growth, but I want to enjoy the summer too.