Hello everyone,

Welcome to my blog! I’m Holly, and I am a freshman at Austin College. I was born in China, immigrated to Los Angeles, moved to Dallas and now I’m here in Sherman. I am in the pre-medicine program, planning to major in biology, go to medical school and become a plastic surgeon or a women’s health doctor. As you can see, I have my life put together. Just kidding, I’m actually a mess, like most college students.

I created this blog for my general psychology class. To be completely honest, I took this course to fulfill my pre-med and social science requirements, but I’m excited to start learning more about the subject. Psychology has always seemed interesting to me because it studies the human mind and behavior. As someone who plans to work with humans for the rest of her life, this class will definitely be useful for my future. I have never taken a psychology class before, and the only background I have close to the field was studying characters as an actor in acting classes and theatre.

When I hear the word “psychology”, I think about a psychiatrist. A lot of the people I know who want to major in psychology also want to become a psychiatrist. In the past, I have thought about becoming a psychiatrist. I also have a strong interest in mental health and illness since I’ve had several encounters and experiences with them in the past. That being said, the three topics in the syllabus that look the most interesting to me are classifying mental illness, treating mental illness and stereotypes and discrimination. Although our country is considerably more progressive than many other countries, mental illness is still commonly neglected and dismissed today in our country, especially in the public school system. I have attended public schools up until college, and mental illness was a topic that was never thoroughly discussed in the classrooms. I hope studying these topics will improve my understanding on how different kinds of mental illness and treatments work. In addition to mental illness, I am also eager about the discrimination and stereotypes topic, since it is very prevalent today. As an immigrant and a minority, I have experienced discrimination and stereotypes throughout my life and even have been guilty of discriminating and stereotyping against others in the past. I am looking forward to studying discrimination and stereotypes from a psychological point of view. The three topics in the syllabus that look the least interesting to me are scientific method, research methods and experimental design. As a science major and pre-med student, every single one of my science classes have gone over those topics to the point where they are bland and repetitive. Don’t worry. I’ll survive through it.

By the end of this semester I hope my questions about mental illness will be answered, such as how do depression and anxiety form and are there treatments for mental illness other than pills. I also hope I do not look like a corpse by the end of this semester. A lot of upperclassmen have told me freshman pre-med spring semester is tough.

Wish me luck, and see you guys soon!

Holly

My name is Natalie Readnour and I am a freshman here at Austin College. I chose to take this class because I want to take more psychology classes in the future. I have no personal background in psychology but both my mom and my sister have degrees in psychology. When I hear the word “psychology” I think about the mind and often time, mental illness. The topics “Coping with Stress,” “Stereotypes and Discrimination,” and “Social Roles & Conformity” sound the most interesting to me because they seem most applicable to my present life and many situations. The topics on conditioning as well as intelligence sound the least interesting. I have no question that I want to answer about psychology but I would like to just be more generally knowledgeable about psychology.

Well hi. So my name is Haeley, but you already knew that. I decided  on psychology because none of the other classes looked very interesting, plus my mom majored in psychology. What background do I have in psychology you ask? Well not much personally, but my mom loves to talk about it all the time and diagnose me and my friends with some sort of mental problem any time we do something even slightly out of the ordinary. OH, your friend started smoking? It must be because she’s depressed from the lack of discipline and love she gets from her alcoholic parents and is just acting up for attention. …Ok mom. When I hear the word “psychology” I think of brain synapses and all those connections. Thoughts. Behavior. That kind of thing. Week 5 (memory), week 6 (sleep and drugs), and week 14 (psychotic, traumatic, and personality disorders) look the most interesting to me. 14 because, well come on, who’s not interested in crazy people? I’m curious about the sleep section, what we’re going to talk about, because everybody in my family has some kind of sleep disorder. And then I assume we’re going to talk about false memories and stuff like that so that’s always fun. Week 3 (cognitive/moral development), 8 (conditioning), and 13 (social roles and conformity) look the least interesting. I can’t tell you why, they just don’t sound like much fun. It’s like not liking a vegetable. You don’t know why you don’t like it, you just know you don’t. But I may be wrong, who knows? I don’t have any questions to be answered.

My name is LeeAnne Padilla and I am a freshman at Austin College.  I’ve always been interested in the study of human behavior and how we think.  Besides being in this class, I have never taken a class in Psychology before.  I think it would be extremely interesting to analyze human behavior and other processes that occur in our seemingly complex brains.

Whenever I hear the word “psychology” I usually imagine highly qualified therapists or doctors studying the nature of the human mind and why people think and do certain things.  I guess to a certain extent that’s what psychology is.  However, what if normal college students, like myself, were the ones studying and researching all about the human mind?

After looking at the different topics listed on our syllabus for this semester, three of them stood out to me: moral development, stereotypes & discrimination and psychotic, traumatic, & personality disorders.  First, moral development seemed very interesting to me.  It’s one thing to discuss how learning and common sense skills were developed, but to discuss how morals and basic human values were learned and accepted in society is a whole different spectrum of analysis.  The next topic that caught my eye was the topic of stereotypes & discrimination.  We live in a world today where people are voicing their opinions and concerns more and more.  Gay rights activists protest on the streets, thousands of women from across the country march in their own cities, expressing their concerns on how the new president will protect their rights in this country.  However, even though these outspoken protests continue every year, so do the constant stereotypes of different races, genders, religions and many more “groups” of people.  I think it would be very interesting to discuss how stereotypes and overall discrimination has gotten better over the years and also how it has grown in certain areas and how it still affects millions of people today.  The third topic that interested me was the topic of psychotic, traumatic, & personality disorders.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve always been interested in analyzing how and why people think and do certain things, so discussing and analyzing the many different psychological disorders that exist and how they affect the mind, naturally sparked my interest.

As I looked through the list of topics on the syllabus, there were also three that weren’t as interesting to me as the others I have mentioned.  The first one that fell a little flat for me was the topic of research methods, just because it seems to be focused on how scientists and researchers actually find information and how they create theories about different psychological disorders.  Although, this does sound interesting, compared to the other topics it wasn’t as exciting to me.  Another topic that I wasn’t as intrigued by was the topic of concussions, mostly because it seemed to be focused on physical injuries and how those affect your brain and way of thinking.  Again, this does sound interesting, just not as much as the other topics do.  The third topic that didn’t quite catch my eye was the topic of operant conditioning, primarily because I don’t know much about it and it just didn’t stand out to me that much.

As I go through this course and learn about these different, yet very interesting, topics, I hope to answer one simple question: How can I apply this knowledge to my everyday life and possibly my future career?

Hopefully as I take this course, it will open up my mind to many different ways of thinking and it will give me the knowledge to possibly help a friend who is either interested in psychology or struggling with their own psychological issues.  I could even use this knowledge to better understand my own life and my own way of thinking, as well.

My name is Joceline Ramirez and I am a sophomore at Austin College. I am a Business Finance major with a double minor in Chemistry and Spanish on a Pre-Med track. I was born in San Salvador, El Salvador but I have lived in Sherman, Texas for 15 years of my life. I enjoy many things in life but my favorite is definitely food!!! I love the outdoors and I enjoy fishing, hiking, and playing soccer. I have a deep love for God, Family, Friends, and all things in life because there’s beauty in everything. My education is one of the things that I value most in my life, and one day I hope to full-fill my dream of becoming a Pediatrician. Once becoming a pediatrician my biggest dream is to set-up my own practice, and getting to travel to third world countries to help provide urgent care to children whose families cannot afford medical treatment.

I have chosen to take on the challenge of joining psychology 101 because I have always questioned how the human mind works, and I want to discover all the hidden beauty that is found within every different person. By taking this class I get to learn about something I have always been interested in, as well as getting to full-fill one of the courses required for medical school. As a pre-Med student I think it is important to learn how we function as individuals, and how our behaviors and personalities challenge different aspects of society. I approach this course with lots of enthusiasm and hunger to learn new aspects of human character. I personally do not enter this course with any background on psychology, but I plan to be open to new possibilities, and I go into this new adventure with discipline, openness, ambition, and respect towards all these new ideas.

As humans we all have different personalities, making us all capable of looking at new ideas with different points of view.  When I think about the word psychology I immediately think of the human mind, and how every individual has beauty because everyone is able to bring about new ideas. The greatest thing about being individuals is that we enrich our society, we are like little pieces of a puzzle and together we create the bigger picture. Our minds have the ability to reach newer horizons and make changes to the clashing world around us. I see beauty in everything, but the most beautiful thing to me is our capability to bring about change. As humans we are able to set goals and work with great discipline until we make our dreams become realities.

As I look through the course schedule I am able to draw a line between the things I find appealing and the things I don’t. When I look at the syllabus the three main things that jump out at me our the studies over Personality and Culture, Stereotypes and Discrimination, and finally Social Roles and Conformity. These three topics are the ones I find appealing because as a Salvadorian American I have been living both in the shadows and the spotlight of society. I consider myself to be a hybrid because I am composed from elements of two distinct cultures. Being born in a different country and moving here at such a young age I myself have experienced discrimination and hatred from people that consider my culture to be inferior to theirs. No matter what I have lived through I will always consider the United States my home, and that is why I have always had a deep passion towards anything related to culture, diversity, and stereotypes because they have always been a part of me. When looking at the course schedule I can also pinpoint three topics that do not seem very interesting to me and these are the study of the Scientific Method, Research Methods, and  Experimental Design. I think the reason these topics do not full-fill my interest is because in some way I have been overly exposed to these ideas in other classes. These ideas in my opinion are very precise, and I am usually more interested in topics that have a way of being changed. I like to experience new ideas and these topics I have heard about too many times ;therefore, making me loose interest.

There are many things that I expect to learn from this new course, and I know that with the progression of the course my questions about psychology will continue to arise. One of my biggest interests has been about discrimination in society and the question I hope to answer by the end of this course is as to  why humans discriminate towards others and make hatred filled stereotypes ? I am excited to see the changes I make after being exposed to these new ideas.

Hi! My name is Iris.

I chose General Psychology to fulfill my social science requirement because, it’s a subject that I’ve found to be interesting. I don’t have any previous background with this subject but, I have an Idea of what psychology is about and look forward to learning more. When I hear the word “psychology” my first thought is the mind and how it formulates thoughts.

The three topics on our syllabus that I look forward to are “Cognitive Development”, “Brain Structures”and, “Sleep.” I’ve heard about cognitive behavioral therapy and think it’s pretty cool…also as a college student I find sleep to be quite fascinating as well. “Theories of Intelligence”, “Stereotypes & Discrimination” and, “Psychotic, Traumatic, & Personality Disorders” seem to be topics that require a more in-depth understanding of psychology and since I don’t have that quite yet, these topics may be difficult for me.

By the end of this class, I’d like to answer this question: How malleable is the psyche?

Hello readers,

My name is Estefany and I am currently a sophomore in college. This semester I am taking General Psychology. Since I am a pre-med student, I am taking this to course to prepare for the MCAT. However, I am also genuinely interested in the subject. As a junior in high school, I took AP Psychology and found the class to be very interesting. I thought it was really great learning about concepts that applied to me and that I could actually see in my everyday life.

When I hear the word “psychology” I think about the mind and about discovering why people do certain things. However, I’m sure psychology involves much more than this. The three topics I am most excited to learn about are cognitive development, personality theory, and coping with stress. I would like to become a pediatrician and work with kids someday so I think it would be interesting to learn about their brain development since I will be learning mostly about their physical development later on. I would also like to learn  about personality theory and coping with stress because these are two topics that relate to me personally. The three topics I am least interested in learning about are the scientific method, research methods, and neurons. I think I am least interested in these topics because they are subjects we have discussed and learned about in my science courses. We have dealt with the scientific method and research methods a lot in chemistry and biology labs and I have also learned a lot about neurons in my biology and anatomy & physiology courses.

I hope to learn about many things in this course and I don’t think I could narrow it down to one single question. However, I would like to learn about the nature vs nurture discussion. I have always found this topic to be very interesting and I would like to see how this knowledge could be useful later in my career as a pediatrician.

I am looking forward to a great semester in PSY 101!

My name is Juan and I attend Austin College.I am the first child out of my family to go to college in pursuit of becoming successful and get a better education to help me develop skills that will help me in the future. I chose to take General Psychology for my second semester of college because I wanted to learn something new that could help me in the future.I have never taken a psychology class in my previous years of high school.When I hear the word psychology I think about the study of the human mind which affects the way a person’s attitude or behavior changes.The three topics that look interesting to me are the Sleep, Drugs, Alcohol and the Brain,and Classifying Mental illness. These three topics are interesting to me because I want to learn their effects on a person and how to prevent them from becoming worse. The three topics that don’t look too interesting for me are the scientific method, research method, and experimental design. These three topics sound boring to me but it could surprise me making it interesting since this is my first time taking a psychology class.By the end of this class, I want to know what psychology skills I can develop and how to put them to use.

Hi my name is Holly Humphries and this is my psychology blog. First and foremost it’s important to know that I have Major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety, both of which I’m being treated for, so I may approach a lot of things from my perspective and I have some prior knowledge of general psychology. I decided to take this course because I’m planning on majoring in Neuropsychology, so this is the first step in achieving that. I want to major in Neuropsychology because I want to be either a neurosurgeon or a trauma surgeon and do research; also, since I deal with a few problems myself and many people in my family do as well, I’m interested to really know what’s going on. Besides my own situation, I’ve also dealt with psychology being an EMT, because sometimes we get psychiatric calls, where we have to be especially sensitive, and where you learn the most about people. When I think of psychology I think of sitting in a therapists office, and of course the basic person on the long couch telling someone their problems. The three topics I’m most interested in are anxiety & mood disorders, sleep, and brain structures because of course I have anxiety; I’m kind of an insomniac at times or I sleep a lot, so sleep is interesting to me; and I love the brain so I’m interested in learning more about it. The three I’m not excited to learn about are the scientific method, research methods, and conditioning, because I learned about all of them in high school, and I remember really hating conditioning. Finally, the question I want answered by this course is if there is a possibility that diet could help ease depression/anxiety.

Good evening,

I don’t have any experience to speak of as far as blogging is concerned, but I’ll do my best to keep my posts concise and interesting. I suppose for this particular entry that I’ll start by giving a bit of background information about myself and then get on to some of the questions posed by Dr. MacFarlane. I am currently a freshman and am very much enjoying my college experience thus far. Choir and classical voice are two passions of mine that I have continued to pursue here and I spend much of my free time in a practice room working on improving my repertoire and technique. I am considering a major in mathematics with a minor in music or Japanese but I’m still considering my options.

I chose to take General Psychology this semester because I needed to take a social science and I found it preferable to a subject like sociology or anthropology. In particular, I like the idea of being better able to understand the behaviors of people. I don’t have any prior experience in the field of psychology; only an open mind and curiosity. When I think of psychology, nothing in particular comes to mind aside from the small experiments other students asked me to participate in last semester. During this course, I am most looking forward to learning about moral development, memory, and personality. As someone with a passing interest in philosophy and ethics, I am interested in seeing the psychological perspective of the concept of morality. Memory interests me because I find the idea that different people retain different types of information better fascinating and I’d like to know why. Personality is something that we tend to give a great deal of importance to when we talk about whether we like someone or not and I am curious as to what exactly personality is and how exactly it is classified. I am least interested in learning about the scientific method, research methods, and experimental design. I enjoy discovering new things and so I tend to dislike covering topics that I’m already at least passing familiar with. That’s not to say that I don’t think these topics aren’t important, they just aren’t as fun as the others. By the end of this course, I would like to be better informed about mental health.