Hello everyone! My name is Max Jarck and I am a second year Business Administration student. I have not chosen a concentration yet but I am leaning towards finance. My plan is to graduate in the spring of 2021 but with internships and everything it is not a set date.

On the last day of finals I sped out of Georgia Tech blasting Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out”. I was still riding that high when I realized this class started and I had to get back to work. Home for me is a very small town called Gay, Georgia. It is about an hour and a half south of Atlanta in rural Meriwether County. This is where I will be listening to Hamilton from this summer. In addition to this class I work for a lawn care company.

I took English 1101 at Georgia Tech last fall with Dr. Courtney Hoffman. During that class I worked to improve my communication skills through a series of projects including a fifteen minute podcast episode. I enjoy reading a lot. I’m always reading something, anything from Jane Austen to Pat Conroy and I am currently reading the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer. I am fairly confident writing but I always want to improve. Nonverbal communication always challenges me. Last semester after watching some videos I made for 1101 I was shocked at how my facial expressions came across. Hopefully I can continue to improve on all of my communication techniques during this summer class.

Before this class I had only heard bits and pieces about Hamilton and was skeptical that I would enjoy this class. Fast forward a week and I have two songs from the play on a Spotify playlist that I listen to all the time. I’m excited to learn not only about Hamilton but also about all of you this summer.

Hi guys! I’m Grace Griggs.

I’m a Mechanical Engineering major. I’m planning to graduate in 2021, but I would really like to do a co-op while at Tech, which might push that back a bit. I’m in the online section of the course so that I can spend my Summer at home in New Hampshire. Outside of class I’m doing construction and repair work at a local horse farm, which I’m really enjoying. My current project is building lean-to shelters for the horses and my next project is to repaint the entire farmhouse.

English is not always my favorite subject, but interesting course material can more than make up for that. My favorite English class I have ever taken was a combination English/Modern History class I took during my senior year of high school. This is my first college level English class so I’m not entirely sure what to expect. I definitely didn’t expect that I’d get class credit for tweeting. I am hoping to improve my verbal communication skills during this semester, as that is the area I struggle the most with.

I’ve heard of Hamilton before, but I had been avoiding listening to it because I thought I might see it one day and I wanted to avoid spoilers. This is great because I’m coming at the show without any previous baggage. I did theater tech and set construction all throughout high school and worked on several musicals, so you might think that I am a big fan of musical theater, but I’m actually not. When I watch a play I mainly focus on the technical aspects like the lighting and set design because those are the parts I find the most interesting. I’ll watch musicals, but I don’t really care for them outside of the tech. I am excited because this class will push me outside of my comfort zone by focusing on the elements of a show that I tend to pay less attention to.

Here are a couple of the animals from the farm I work at: Honey Badger (top) and Figaroo (bottom).

Hello everyone! My name is Ahad and I am a rising second-year biomedical engineer, hoping to graduate in May of 2021.

Currently, I am in the online lecture of the course, either listening to the live sessions in the Whittaker building, or doing homework in my house in Smyrna.

I am also a premed student, with dreams of one day being a cardiologist and opening my own hospital. Tied to these dreams are my obligations of volunteering in a clinic in Lawrenceville, tutoring middle-school children, playing and watching basketball whenever I can, and trying to start research with a professor.

Although I have a lot of experience with English classes in high school, this is my first English class at Georgia Tech, so I do not really know what to expect, as high school and college are completely different. But I feel as though I have done enough analysis and writing to, hopefully, do well and have fun listening to and exploring Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording).

To continue, I love the written, visual, and electronic aspects of communication and literature; however, since I do not use social media a lot, I would hope to improve the electronic aspect of my writing. Finally, I also hope to improve my oral and nonverbal skills, as I sometimes struggle to convey my points by tongue rather than by paper.

I have never heard nor seen Hamilton before, as I am not a huge fan of musicals; however, I do love to step out my comfort zone to simply learn more and become a better student/person/writer/thinker. I love hip-hop with a fiery passion, so I think listening to a rapped and sung musical will be an incredible journey!

Another thing about me is that I was born and raised in Canada, so I wish I could share my “accent” with you all; I moved here about ten years ago, but one day I hope to go back to Wonderland!

Hey everyone! I’m Noah Hammond.

I took English 1101 here at Georgia Tech last Fall and didn’t particularly enjoy it. I like to read, but unlike my high school English classes, we didn’t read anything other than Shakespeare in 1101. I mostly like to read science fiction and fantasy books such as Game of Thrones. I enjoy English classes if we’re reading about things I like, but I’m usually more of a math/science kind of person like everyone else at Tech.

This summer I’m enrolled in CS 1331, since I want to change my major to Computer Science. I am also working at a restaurant in Tech Square for the summer.

I see myself as a decent oral communicator, since I can convey what I am trying to say most of the time, but I can definitely work on my written communication. Throughout high school and in my previous English class at Tech I struggled with writing essays that were in-depth enough. I end up saying what I want to say in a concise manner and fail to go into detail about the topics I’m discussing. I would like to work on describing the themes of my essays more effectively.

I’d heard of the musical Hamilton because my younger brother is into musicals and is in the theater club at his school. I enjoy going to musicals every now and then, but I’m no huge fan of them. Hamilton seems like a musical I’d be interested in, since it has modern music styles and a diverse cast. This sets it apart from most other musicals.

This is our dog, Biscuit. He’s a Welsh Corgi and he is about a year old. He loves running after everything that makes noise and licking everyone. He barks at nothing, just in case someone is trying to rob our house.

My name is Adair Garrett.  My major is Civil Engineering and I will hopefully graduate in May, 2021. I am in the online section of the course because of my irregular schedule this summer.  I live in Reynoldstown, which is a 15-20 minute drive from Georgia Tech, but I work full time at the Georgia Tech Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain during the week. Later this summer, I will take a break from work to travel to England and Germany for a month, so I will try to be done with most of the assignments by the time I leave!  

Previously, I have taken many different kinds of English classes.  I attended a very liberal high school, so I had many options for expanding my literary and historical perspective.  My high school, Paideia, offered college level classes called “seminars”, and I took an English seminar covering the role of comedy in literature.  We read classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Catch 22, and even wrote essays about media like The Simpsons and Monty Python.  I also took English 1101 at Georgia Tech my first semester with Jennifer Forsthoefel.  It was an Honors Program class and our topic was feminism, so I enjoyed the books we read and many of our assignments.  My favorite book from this class was either Hunger by Roxane Gay or Shrill by Lindy West.  I would highly suggest either of these books to anyone who would like to deepen their understanding of the effects caused by beauty standards for women.  In this class, I struggled with the electronic assignments, including the first video and the digital poster. Nevertheless, this semester I do not care to focus on improving my ability to adapt to different technologies.  I would like to become a better writer this semester because I feel like my focus on STEM this past year has caused me to lose a lot of what I learned during my ongoing English curriculum in the past.

I have heard of Hamilton but I never listened to it.  In general, I dislike musicals, but my best friends throughout high school loved this musical.  I’ve been exposed to some of the songs, but I will try to be open minded moving forward with this course.  I do like hip hop, and I predict that I’ll get into Hamilton after I watch it all the way through.

In my free time, I like to plant trees in bright yellow vests, go to local concerts, and play with my four-year-old sister.

Hello all! My name is Clarisa Colton and I am a Computer Science major. I plan on graduating in 2021, but depending on internships or studying abroad that could be pushed back some. I am in the online section of the course, but I’ll actually be on campus this summer. I wasn’t able to take the in-person section of the course because another class I’m taking interfered with this section time wise.

Other than ENGL 1102, I am currently enrolled in two other Computer Science courses. Hopefully I’ll still get to have fun this summer with my friends who are here and I also plan on volunteering some at the Atlanta Humane Society. My first semester at Tech I took English 1101 and I had a pretty good experience. It happened to be my professor’s first time teaching at Tech and so it was a learning experience for us as well as him. I do enjoy the writing aspect of communication – in some capacities. I don’t enjoy writing super formal things as much, like a research paper, but when it comes to more personal and/or casual writings I can enjoy it. My least favorite aspect of communication would probably be orally. What’s mostly an issue for me is talking in front of groups of people I may not know very well and maybe aren’t comfortable with, but it’s something that’s been an ongoing process for me.

I haven’t really listened to much of Hamilton before. The most exposure I have had to it was my senior year of high school when our Orchestra and Chorus performed “My Shot” together. Although I’ve played the cello most of my life, I also really love to sing and do love musicals – despite the fact that I never got into Hamilton while it was really big. Hip hop has never really been my thing, but I’m sure it’s not really going to be an issue – I’m actually really excited to finally listen to all of Hamilton. Some other things about me are that I’m the youngest of five children, I’ve played the cello since third grade, and I love, love, love dogs!

by: Clarisa Colton