Hi, as you may or may not know my name is Marquis Smith. I am currently a freshmen at St. Lawrence University who was born and raised in New York City, the Bronx to be precise. In the beginning of my fall semester as a freshmen I believed that I had my goals set on what I wanted to do all four years of my college life and what major I wanted undergo while I attended college, which was to take up a biology major and go into the Pre- Vet field of work. However, my goals have made a serious change since last semester and I have notice that I rather keep biology as a field that I like rather than a field that I would work in for the rest of my life. Instead of having a biology major my new course of interest happens to be psychology.

Psychology is a field that strikes my interests because not only is it a science course which happens to be one of my favorite subjects but it also happens to be a field that allows you to analyze and understand more than one already knows. So with that said my new goal in life is to become a psychology major. Although I do have a strong love for science; English is another course that I happen to find interesting. Growing up in the Bronx and getting different views of how English can be used in literature opened my eyes to new aspects of ways that I myself can write. During my high school years I would have to say truly gave me the best insight on how one could use english to open up new doors for people. Seeing how there are many minorities in the Bronx my literature teachers gave out books to read that actually had more to do with the struggles of many african americans and/or hispanic americans because it related more to my fellow classmates and I growing up in urban cities. THIS was one of the best experiences I had in my english classes. Reading books by hispanic and black authors was a good experience to me because I saw things in these books that made me feel like I could understand more and relate to more than other books. These books also helped me develop a new sense of how writing can be displayed to convey points in many works of literature.

Being partially African American would be one of the main reasons for me enrolling in this course. The true reason i decided to take this class would be to get more in depth with understanding the concepts and ideas portrayed through african american literature. One thing I do understand is that African american literature unlike other types of literature has many points to convey and from some of the african american literature I have read on my own time I have learned that these books always have missing information a reader must find and analyze to get the true meaning of the work. So to be honest I am interested in this course because African American Literature excites me because you truly never know what can happen or what will happen in this literature.