Tad Schwartz

Thus far at St. Lawrence I have taken the majority of my classes in Psychology and Economics. I believe however that I am leaning towards becoming a psychology major because it comes easier to me. I have continued to take psychology classes because the subject tries to explain out actions as humans. I enjoy reading about how past psychologists have come to the many conclusions about why we as humans do this and that. I continue to take economics classes because I came to St. Lawrence thinking that this was what I wanted to pursue. I find economics courses interesting because I think it is important to understand all the concrete ideas that are used by not just smaller companies but our country as a whole to be successful. Also, I find it very important to know what is going on in the current economy over the past year with everything that has been happening.
I am from Darien Connecticut which is a suburb of New York City. It has about 20,000 people but seems much smaller. Most people from my town commute to the city for work.
In my previous classes I would say that I have had good feedback on my work. In my FYP which was an English course, my professor stressed the importance of gaining as much feedback as you possibly can as a writer. Since then I have started to ask for more help in revising my work.
I have two favorite poets. One is of course Shel Silverstein. "Where the side walk ends" was probably the book that introduced me to poetry and I remember in seventh grade having to memorize one of his poems and present it to the class. I was scared at first but the humor of all of his poems eased my stage fright. The other poet that I have enjoyed was my senior year modern poetry teacher. She has never published any of her work that I know of but she taught me alot about the subject and would often times share something she had written. You could tell that poetry was her way of expressing her self and I really respected that and became a better poet my self when I realized that.
I think that good poetry has meaning and not necessarily the same meaning for everyone. A good poet causes its reader to think about its context and extract that meaning. I also believe that good poetry can paint a picture. While you read the words you can picture each line in your head.
In this class I want to be refreshed in the different types of poetry that I learned in high school. I want to find which form best fits my writing style and i want to learn how I can come up with ideas for what to write about.