The main focus of the World Societies course was to learn the development of culture, technology as its social and political aspects as society grew. The course covered content between the start of civilization from the Paleolithic and Neolithic's ancient river valley and the cavemen through the events of WWII. Throughout the course, I was able to learn the reasons for occurrences and the development of humanity as we focused on different places and cultures, and it has deepened my appreciation for the current world and my family background and lineage.
Asian cultural and religious development was one of the main parts we looked at in World Societies. In class, I learned about the origins of Islam and the spread of the religion to China through the trading route known as the Silk Road. As one of the minority peoples in China, I was able to link the history we learned in class and reflect on my Arabic Islam descent lineage, especially when the Chinese government was having conflicts with people who live in the northwestern part of China that share similar blood with me. We also dug deeper into the native religious development in China like Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism during learning. We found out that those aspects of life from so many years ago are still affecting the formation of the Chinese ideology with a slight tweak to the socialism ideology till today.
For the second semester's final project, we focused on the stories of individuals affected by WWII. My project was written in a diary format from the perspective of a young man who lived in Peking but then moved to Wuhan during the Japanese invasion of the Northeastern part of China. For this project, I was able to look back to my great grandfather's experience and integrate that into my project. I researched detailed information about the Chinese nationalism movement and looked into works of literature that depicted life during that time. Seeing a historical event from the perspective of someone who lived through the war, I was able to deeply appreciate the rather peaceful time that we live in now.