What I Learned and What I’m Taking With Me

    Finishing this course made me realize how much my understanding of truth has changed over the semester. At the start, I thought of deception as something obvious. Scams, lies, manipulation. All the classic examples. After diving into everything from phishing scams to the Salem Witch Trials to deepfakes, I see how complicated it really is. Most deception is not dramatic. It grows out of fear, confusion, or the simple urge to make sense of something that feels out of place. What surprised me most was how often people deceive themselves long before they deceive anyone else.

    One of my favorite parts of the class was learning how belief shapes perception more than evidence does. The Millerite Movement made that clear. The White Slavery panic did too. People were not trying to do harm. They were trying to understand a world that felt unstable. The same pattern showed up in modern topics like catfishing, digital hoaxes, and AI misinformation. The tools change, but the behavior does not. That was the biggest takeaway for me. Humans will always fill gaps with whatever feels believable, even when it is not grounded in fact.

    I also enjoyed how much this class forced me to slow down and think. Our conversations, the films we watched, the historical examples, and even the funny moments all pointed to the same lesson. Truth is rarely simple, and belief is never neutral. I caught myself checking sources more often, questioning my first reactions, and paying closer attention to how stories are told. I did not expect this class to change how I see everyday information, but it did.

    This was my second semester with Dr. Williams, and it lived up to everything I expected. He teaches in a way that makes you want to think harder instead of just memorize something for a grade. The discussions, the energy in the room, and the way he pushes us to form our own perspectives made a real impact on me. I am grateful for both semesters and for how much I have learned. It has been one of the most meaningful parts of my time here.