“there is not always, all things considered, a best thing to do.”-Kwame Anthony Appiah

Revisiting my essential question, I’ve realized how broad I made my project. I don’t know how well I have answered it; I don’t know how well I could answer it. If I could do it over, I would have rephrased the question. I would prefer to focus on the universality (or lack thereof) of morals. I’ve been focusing on that anyway. My project has been evolving as I’ve learned more about philosophy, and the vastness of it.

My expectations were blown away. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. There is a world of philosophy that the layman just can’t conceive. There is so much detail. As I was talking to one of my interviewees, he mentioned that I could take one aspect of my already specific project, and get even more specific, then write a dissertation on that. I love that about philosophy.

I, thankfully, met my goals. I was worried that I had bitten off more than I could chew, even while designing my project. 

I found my work very one-dimensional, not very dynamic. Especially when the reading was getting dense, it was hard to motivate myself to keep going. One thing that really helped was finding different media to consume. I watched videos and listened to philosophers talk, in addition to my readings. Having a bit of variety in what I was doing helped keep my mind fresh.

It was very ambitious of me to try to explore philosophy through multiple cultural lenses. It was a risk that didn’t quite pay off, but it was a learning opportunity for me. I discovered the tip of the iceberg of the kind of cultural diversity this world contains. In the future, doing a project like this will require more time, more work, or maybe just more specificity.

I am more confident in my ability to dictate my own schedule. It was hard for me to keep up at the beginning of this project. I found myself struggling to meet the hours requirement. As time went on, it became more and more natural to stick to a strict schedule.

I was surprised how deep the rabbit hole of philosophical writing goes. While reading The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah, I came across what could have resulted in a whole new reading list that could guide me through multiple different Senior Projects. It was truly eye opening to see how much I didn’t know. It reminds me of the Socrates quote I referenced at the beginning of this project. I truly didn’t know a thing, and I still feel like I know nothing; at least there is infinitely more to learn.

The questions that Senior Project has brought up for me are very philosophical, quite predictably. They expand on my project, wondering about what I’d learn from reading religious texts, texts from other cultures, historical texts, etc. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I can learn.

I’m definitely interested in pursuing philosophy further, at least over the summer. I want to read more of the preliminary list I had drawn when I was planning this project. I learned how I work independently, which will be instrumental in my college career. I’m excited to see how this affects my life beyond the abstractness of theory.

I’m most proud of my ability to keep up with my workload. I was ambitious when designing my project. I wanted to really dive deep into the topic, and gain as much knowledge as possible. I am proud of the kind of content I was able to understand. So much of the writing was dense, with advanced concepts and vocabulary. I’m proud that I could understand it.

I don’t know what I would do differently, if I’d do anything differently. I really enjoyed doing the research, I enjoyed the interviews, I enjoyed what little I’ve done already to prepare to present. I think the only thing I’d want to change would be the length of Senior Project. I’d want more time to read more, conduct more interviews, etc. 

The hardest part of Senior Project was figuring out how to manifest my learning. So much of my work has been abstract thinking. 

I want to share the inquisitive nature of philosophy with my audience on Senior Project Evening. I want to demonstrate the kind of mindset that goes into the kind of exercises that I engaged in over the course of this project. 

I want to demonstrate the interviews I had. I feel that a lot of good discussion happened. I want to engage my audience in the kind of thinking that I encountered over this project. I’m thinking of either doing a demonstrative lesson or displaying the audio files in a gallery.