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