Hello! My name is Colt, and I use he/him pronouns.I grew up in Eustace, TX, graduated in a class with 60 people, and I’m now a freshman at Austin College. I enjoy photography, art, reading, watching movies, all types of social media, and traveling. My favorite book is Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnnegut. My favorite movie is American Beauty, and my favorite song right now is Spirits by The Strumbellas. Now that the fun facts are over with, I’ll include the required material.
Why you chose to take this class? This could be a possible career choice, and I’m testing the waters right now with it. I find it fascinating that some people I have talked to about their experiences in the mental health world would like to be treated by people who have somewhat experienced what their patient has as well. Speaking of which, I also have my own mental health issues I’d like to learn and explore more.
What do you associate with the word “psychology”? Oddly enough, the German word (Psychologie), and the wonderfully sexist Freud even though he’s slowly becoming more obscure as the world of psychology advances forward.
Which 3 topics from the syllabus look the most interesting to you (and why)? The three topics that the look the most interesting are Drugs, Alcohol, and the Brain, Personality Assessment, and Social Roles and Conformity. I’ve heard rumors that drugs can actually help with some mental disorders, and I’d appreciate more information to see if these claims are true or not. I like assessing myself and taking personality quizzes, so I’m very excited about the Personality Assessment part (Scorpio, introvert, Hufflepuff, INFP, would apparently be Artemis if given the opportunity to be a Greek God/Goddess). Social Roles and Conformity looks interesting because I had Ian as my CI professor, and we talked about those two things abundantly in class. The topic formed a love/hate relationship with me mainly because there are no concrete answers, but at the same time there are answers.
Which 3 topics from the syllabus look the least interesting to you (and why)? Assessing Intelligence, Research Methods, and Brain Structure look the least interesting to me. Assessing Intelligence is a broad topic because there are different types of intelligence and so many ways to calculate how smart someone is, but in the end, one can truly never know how accurate these assessments are. Research Methods is probably going to involve math, and Brian Structure is probably just going to be too much memorization.
What one question you want to be able to answer by the time this class is over? Are some mental illnesses displayed in the media through pseudo-scientific articles more than others and why?
