Excursion Day 2

We spent the second day of our excursion driving 300 kilometers to reach the city of Yusufeli. Our route took us along the Black Sea, over Kackar Mountain, and through Coruh Valley. While most of our day was spent on the bus, we made a few stops, including an artisan textile shop on the Black Sea, one of Turkey’s largest dams (aptly named the Monster Dam), and a small Anatolian village.

My friend Nick and I by the Black Sea

My favorite part of the day was driving along the artificial lake created by the Monster Dam. The dirt road we were driving on was etched into the mountainside, meandering parallel to the water. Steep mountains rose on all sides of the lake and the water was an eerie green, both of which contributed to the desolate atmosphere of the surrounding landscape. The area was hauntingly beautiful.

The Monster Dam

Towards the end of the day, we stopped to use the bathroom in a tiny village. After stepping off the bus, the first thing that hit me was the distinct smell of sewage. It was unpleasant, but I soon forgot about it when a few children ran over to inspect what were likely the only Americans they had ever seen. We practiced our rudimentary Turkish with them, and they seemed very pleased at our attempt to communicate. One boy, the most outgoing of the group, kept saying something to me, but I didn’t understand. Finally, when we were all about to get back on the bus, I realized that he had been asking for money the whole time. I gladly handed him some coins, embarrassed that I hadn’t understood him earlier.

Abandoned homes in the Coruh Valley

One of the strangest facts we learned from our guide is that the entire area we drove through that afternoon will be underwater sometime in the next decade. The government plans to fund a new dam that will cause the water level to rise and completely cover the surrounding valley, including the small village we visited and the city we spent the night in. Some houses in the valley have already been vacated, further adding to the ghostly feeling of the place. 

After reaching Yusufeli and having a mediocre dinner at the hotel, we went into the city to find some dessert. On our way back to the hotel, we were stopped by a group of young Turkish men who desperately wanted a picture with the African American and Chinese American girls on our program. The girls obliged and the guys went on their way. Our chaperone explained that these guys had never seen a black or Chinese person before. Coming from an American context, this seems impossible; it reminded me how isolated and off the beaten path this area really is. 

Excursion Day 1

For spring break, our program is taking the sixteen of us to eastern Turkey for a week to see some museums, old monasteries, and breathtaking landscapes. Each day, I will try to give a brief recap of our activities.

Day 1

After waking up at 4am and catching an early flight to Trabzon (a city in northeastern Turkey on the Black Sea), we enjoyed a traditional Turkish breakfast—cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, bread, butter, and jam. It was a chilly, sunless morning in Trabzon, but I still enjoyed sitting by the sea, munching on food, and sipping hot Turkish tea.

The first site we visited was Hagia Sofia, an old Georgian church situated on the coast. It’s a fairly large church and its ceilings are plastered with beautiful paintings of biblical scenes. There are two other Hagia Sofia churches in Turkey, the smaller of which has recently been converted into a mosque. The third Hagia Sofia is the famous one in Istanbul that shows up in movies and history textbooks and is positioned right across from the Blue Mosque.

After Hagia Sofia, we made our way to Sumela Monastery. The monastery is built into a cliff side, so after driving up a dangerously steep hill, we had to leave our tour bus and pile into vans for the rest of the way. The van ride was hair-raising, as our driver seemed to disregard the precarious nature of the road we were using; the road was narrow, had no guardrails, and was slick from the rain earlier that day, yet our driver seemed to relish his ability to take sharp turns and drive quickly.

When we reached it, the monastery was shrouded in a thick veil of mist, which, according to our guide, is pretty common given the altitude and the amount of rain this area sees. Unfortunately, the fog obstructed the view, but after our steep ascent, I knew quite well how high up we were. The stone buildings are built on the side of a sheer cliff face so the monastery is quite a visually stunning complex.

After inspecting the monastery, we opted out of taking the vans back down the hill in favor of a walking path that snakes its way down to the parking area. Once we reached the bottom, we had lunch at a restaurant that served the best rice pudding I’ve ever had. I also had some excellent trout (served with skin, bones, and the head).

Overall, it was an excellent day, filled with cool old churches and tasty food.

Midterms

I had my first midterm exam last week in my Cultural Psychology course. I didn’t know what to expect going into the exam, so I read through the textbook, looked over my notes, and made a study guide—my modus operandi for exams at Hamilton. I felt confident after studying, despite my dislike for the structure of the test (40 multiple-choice questions; no short answers or essays).

There are 250 students in this course, something I am unfamiliar with coming from a school that doesn't  allow class enrollment to exceed 40. There are no attendance or participation requirements and the professor doesn’t know anyone’s name. The only grades for the course are two midterms and a final. This is not my ideal kind of class and I don’t think this style is particularly conducive to effective learning; however, I understand that big universities have to offer large lecture-style classes like these.  

The exam itself brought back so many memories of standardized tests in high school: there were proctors who patrolled the room, scanning for signs of cheating, we had to fill out our answers on an optical answer sheet to be run through an electronic reader, and we were required to sit three seats apart from everyone else. At Hamilton, we have an honor code, so professors simply hand out the exams and leave the room for the duration of the test.

Many of the questions on the test, in my opinion, were pretty stupid. A lot of questions were overly specific, just to make sure that the students who didn’t go to class would get them wrong. The problem, however, is that any sensible student who actually went to class wouldn’t have written down those pieces of information since they weren’t useful concepts, facts, or ideas. Furthermore, some questions were vague and ambiguous, others were not worded well, and others asked about issues that are not relevant to the core objective and focus of the class. Needless to say, I was frustrated by the exam.

The psych department released the results of the exam yesterday; they posted all the grades adjacent to people’s corresponding student ID numbers. I got an 83, which I would usually be quite unhappy with, but after looking at the other scores I didn’t feel as bad: the average was a 64 and only one person scored above a 90. What kind of a midterm has a failing grade as the average? Even more disconcerting is the fact that this exam was worth a third of our overall grade.

The strangest part of the whole exam experience, though, was today in class. Our professor read, in front of the entire class, the full name of the student and his or her exam grade for everyone who scored above a 75. After she read each name, she looked around the room and expected the student to acknowledge him or herself, whereupon she individually congratulated and thanked the student. It was so bizarre, and in my view, a terrible thing to do. When she called my name, I didn’t raise my hand; I did not want to be thanked for getting a B- on an exam, as if I was somehow better than any of the other students in the class.

In case you couldn’t tell, I am not happy with this course’s assessment method. I’m not concerned about my own grade, since it won’t appear on my transcript at Hamilton, but I think this exam was poorly thought out, written, and administered.