After Gramsci, Foucault and Postmodernism, What else IS there?!

...well, Caste, Marxism, Subaltern Studies, Supply and Demand Curves, Purposive Sampling Techniques...

I have officially made it through my first 3 exams for this semester! It's been a rough few days, but I am glad to be able to mark the halfway point in the testing process. Monday and Tuesday, I sat for Casework and Group work papers. Both were 2 hours long, which sounds like a lot of time. But actually, I am amazed I was able to even touch on half the subjects they wanted us to address in that time period! It's incredible how much material they expect us to cover. In Casework, we had a multiple-choice section (small mercy!) along with an option between several essay topics. I opted for writing 2 short essays and one long. The short were on recording in the casework process, and another on the philosophical assumptions of social casework. The long essay was an explanation and description of the "Task Centered Approach" to casework.
In Group work, the exam started with a case study that we had to read and then write notes about. We were expected to identify the principles of group work contained within the study, with in-depth explanation of two of them. Then we had to identify the dynamics present within the study. The essay component of the exam once again had a few options. Of the choices, I thought that two short and one long essay sounded best, and I went for a short essay on the initial phase of group work, another short essay on the Social Goals Model in group work, and a long essay on the middle phase of group work "with special emphasis on the role of conflict and decision making in this phase." While I'm not sure how I did on either one of these exams, I am fairly sure I didn't fail them. I think casework went better than group work did, but with the subjective nature of essay questions, who knows what the results will be!

Today's exam was one I had been DREADING since day one! History and Ideologies of Social Work is a pretty vast subject, and definitely one in which my foreignness is a huge factor. In the end, though, I think my preparations paid off, and I am relatively satisfied with how I feel coming out of the test. I ended up writing a long essay explaining the contentions of Gramsci and Foucault, another long essay on the Historical Development of Social Work in the Global Context, and two short essays- one on Postmodernism and another on Human Rights. Now, if you are thinking,"How can you possibly write a short essay on postmodernism or human rights and even remotely explain them?", well, I am right there with you. My biggest frustration with today's wasn't that I didn't know what to write, it's that I didn't know what NOT to write, since I couldn't possibly address everything in only 2 hours. But I keep reminding myself that all of my classmates had 2 hours to answer the very same questions, so as long as I did my best, I couldn't have expected to include anything more than what I did.

Now all I have left is Quantitative Research Methods and Statistics on Friday, and "Understanding Society" (a Sociology course within the Indian context), and Economics next Monday and Wednesday. I'm halfway there! Understanding Society is another subject that has my American-born self fighting off a panic attack at every turn. The concepts of caste, dalits, subaltern studies etc. are all completely new to me, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. But, in the end, I am definitely learning, which is what I came here to do. So, while good grades would be nice, I'm trying to just be happy with the personal growth in knowledge that I've obtained from being here.

Well I know this post was probably incredibly boring to all of you. Exams are my life at the moment, so I really can't even begin to think about anything else. Once this is over, I promise to have all kinds of fun and exciting posts complete with pretty pictures of all of my adventures! Until next week!