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.