My Favorite Course this Term (24W): ANTH 76!

I can't believe it's already week 8! With this term almost wrapping up, I wanted to share my favorite course this term, which is ANTH 76: Evolution of Upright Walking. As an anthropology modified with global health major, this class was a requirement for the "culminating experience" requirement (also known as a senior seminar). I joined the class with this requirement in mind, but I ended up loving the content more than expected, so I wanted to share my thoughts.

Bipedalism, the concept that humans have evolved from another form of locomotion to walking bipedally, has been extensively discussed throughout the anthropological world. Professor Jeremy DeSilva is one of the prominent scholars within the field! There are so many terminologies involved—from non-human primates versus humans, hominins versus hominids to knuckle-walking, thermoregulatory, and the origin of man hypotheses—yet each and every one of them is super interesting. You even read one of Prof. DeSilva's books, First Steps, which outlines the various fossilized records that support the evolution of bipedalism. 

The course structure involves weekly discussion posts (honestly sharing your pure thoughts whilst doing the readings), one solo presentation, one midterm paper, and a final project that could be developed from the midterm paper or you can try out an art piece, music, videos, etc. I'm thinking of doing an acrylic painting that portrays the bipedal evolution. 

Prof. DeSilva always emphasizes the "learning" aspect, so there is less pressure on needing to perform well and get high grades. In fact, most of the assignments aren't numerically graded to lift that stress off. This allowed me to focus more on actually grasping the concepts (and actually enjoying it throughout it all); in fact, I became even more passionate about pursuing an anthropology major. This course is only offered every other year, but if you are an anthropology major, and even if you're not, I highly recommend it!