Surprise prize

Today I discovered that the freebie requirement-filling, it-sounded-interesting classes one takes can have much greater consequences than I thought. Last fall I decided to take an intro philosophy class in ethics, because I've always been really interested in ethics as a topic of study and because it's something I'm interested in applying to science and research. Anyway, it was a perfectly good class but a bit dull, and taking a 100-level class as a Junior it was a blast from the past in terms of easiness and work load. Overall I enjoyed though.

Then a month and a half ago I got an email from the professor asking if he could nominate one of my essays for that class for the Philosophy department's essay competition, so I figured I might as well go with it, considering the paper was already written anyway. So today I strolled sleepily into my lab (I say sleepily because the end of the semester crunch has just made that my normal physiological state) and check my email, and there is an email from the philosophy department saying that I've been awarded "Best 100-Level Paper" and I get $100 for it (which of course made me wonder, if it was best 300-level paper would I have gotten $300?)! So that was nice. Especially since I just had to buy my monthly metrocard for $104 today...

Anyway, I guess it goes to show that taking classes just because they seem interesting really can pay off.

- Celine