Hello ladies and gentleman! Here at Austin College I will be at your service today as well as for the rest of the spring semester. Welcome to the hottest blog spot on the block. Here and only here yours truly, Morris Shell III, will introduce the most extravagant information relating to PSY101. For those of you who do not have a clue what PSY is, let me explain. PSY is an acronym for psychology or the study of human brain activity and behavior. I myself like to associate this word with people referred to as psychics. Become overwhelmed with awe as the best topics this semester will be discussed such as Personality Theory, Emotion, and Personality & Culture. Interesting facts and revelations might come to you as why your friends act or feel the way they do. I might even mention some of the less popular topics such as Sleep, Neurons, and Brain Structures. From that one might learn to sleep for at least eight hours to be a happier person and stuff like that which sounds interesting as learning about types of grasses. In all, here will be the place to be.
Just so you know a little bit about me I’ll tell you a couple of things about yours truly. First comes my identity. As you may already know my name is Morris Shell III and I am a freshman at Austin College. There I will be staying until I graduate with a Business Finance degree. Before I came to Austin College, I attended Irving High School in Irving, Texas where I started my football career that drew me into Austin College. What comes next is a snip bit of my personality. I am quite a social fiend with a friendly attitude in need of continuous activities to do in order to stay happy and awake. Finally comes an interesting explanation of why I’m in the class anyway. It all started one day during fall semester. I was a computer looking up new classes to take when I found out I needed humanities credit and that’s when I found this class. The rest is basically history. That is just a little bit about me.
After this semester though, there is just one question others, including myself, would like to be able to answer. Are we really as mentality stable as we say we are as a society?

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?

Hello, my name is Kirstin and I am currently a freshman here at AC hoping to major in Anthropology. To me, Psychology is the study of what people do and why they do it. As an aspiring Anthropologist, I feel that taking a class about the inner-workings of a person could be very useful for me in the future. Some of the topics I’m looking forward to learning about in this class are personality and culture, coping with stress and social roles and conformity. On the flip side of that, I am not so much looking forward to brain structures and classical and operant conditioning…although that could just be because I don’t know exactly what those topics will comprise of. There’s not necessarily one question that I hope to have answered by the end of this class. I’m really just looking forward to having a better idea of what psychology is and applying the knowledge to my major.

Hi! My name is Lisha, and I am a freshman at Austin College. I am on the Pre-Med track here and hope to become a doctor one day. My home for the last ten years has been Coppell, a small suburb town outside of Dallas, Texas, however I am originally from India and moved to the U.S. at the age of seven. In my free time, I enjoy reading anything I can get my hands on, especially fantasy, and I am also an avid movie goer.

This blog is a part of my psychology class this semester, and I chose to take this class because psychology has always been one of the subjects I have been interested in. The opportunity to learn about it, however, did not present itself before now. When thinking of the word “psychology”, I associate it with human behavior, thoughts and emotions and how the brain functions and develops in different situations.

Looking at the syllabus, the three topics I am most interested in are Sleep, Memory Retrieval and Drugs, Alcohol, & the Brain. The topic sleep is interesting because I think I can benefit from learning more about it as a college student who is constantly sleep deprived. Memory Retrieval looks interesting to me because I am hopeful that the information from this topic will make my studying habits more efficient. Last but not least, the topic Drugs, Alcohol, & the Brain is interesting because it is always good to be knowledgeable about the effects of drugs and alcohol on the human brain, especially when many people my age are affected by it.

On the other hand, the three topics that look the least interesting are Experimental Design, Research Methods, and Scientific Method. These three topics have been previously taught in my science classes throughout my educational career. I am mostly looking forward to the aspects of this class that differ from my conventional science classes. I understand these three topics are important in the field of psychology for research purposes, and although it does not particularly interest me, I know I will benefit from learning these topics as well.

By the end of this class, I hope to have a general understanding of psychology and be able to answer the question: To what extent has the study of psychology changed the understanding of human behavior to better improve the lives of people living in the modern, developing world?

Hi everyone!

My name is Liya, and I’m currently a freshman here at Austin College. I moved from India to New Jersey when I was 9 years old, and I’ve been living in Texas for the past 6 years. My home is in Allen, TX even though I spend the majority of my weeks in Sherman. Transitioning from having a graduating class of 1,400 kids in high school to around 300 kids in college has been a major change in my life, but I’ve come to enjoy how a small college provides a the family-like atmosphere.

To start off my very first blog post, there are many reasons why psychology has always been very interesting to me. There was always something intriguing about the human mind, how it functions, and how human beings deals with situations in the way that they do. The reason I chose to take General Psychology was to learn the complex processes of the brain, and how those processes affect the actions of an individual.

The topics I’m very eager to learn about are Personality & Culture, Social Roles & Conformity, and Coping with Stress. These are all topics that are relevant to today’s society & time. I’m hoping to learn about how someone’s personality affects the role they play in his/her respective culture, and how those roles are suppressed due to conformity. Stress is also a major component of everyday life in individuals of all ages. Therefore, being knowledgeable about how to cope with stress will definitely help me, as well as enable me to help others who are dealing with stress. Although I’m eager to learn about the processes of the brain, I’m not as interested in learning about Psychology Then & Now, the Scientific Method, and Research Methods, because I have never been a fan of research or history. After my first day in class, however, I’ve learned that research is a crucial part of this course, and I’m hoping that I start to enjoy it as the class progresses.

By the end of the course, I wish to be able to answer the question “Why is mental health equally important, if not more important, as physical health in an individual?” As I’m working towards my goal of one day being in the medical field, I strive to not only learn about the physical body, but also to take a holistic approach and assess all the aspects of individuals that affect the way they think, make decisions, and act.

Hello everyone my name is Logan Sullivan I love hanging out with my friends, playing sports, playing games, and spending time with my family. I am 18 years old and my birthday is March 19th. I was actually born in Omaha, Nebraska on the Air Force Base, but I moved to Texas when i was 2 and a half so I have been raised in Texas pretty much my whole life. I chose to take the General Psychology course because I find psychology, specifically the aspect of being able to predict someones actions based on things you can observe from them, very interesting. When I hear the word psychology I usually think of interpretation. For example if you are given a  problem such as what does it mean when someone has a very common dream. You interpret what that means to the person and why they are having that dream. The subjects I am most looking forward to are the memory retrieval sections, coping with stress sections, and the assessing intelligence sections. The few i am looking forward to the least would be the Drugs, alcohol, and the brain, the social roles, and the obedience topics. By the time the class is over I would like to be able to answer questions about people. Mainly can I predict the outcomes of a conversation with someone by just knowing psychological factors and tells, without knowing the person’s personality beforehand?

I chose to take this class because I have decided to major in Psychology. When it comes to the word “Psychology”, I associate it with the study of the human mind and our choice of actions, as well applying it with research and data. The 3 topics that interest me the most that we will be discussing throughout the course would be Sleep, Memory Failures, and Brain Structures. I want to see how the different structures of the brain affects our memory and sleep. The 3 topics that see the least interesting to me would be Research Methods, Experimental Design, and Attachment Theory. I just think those are boring topics and non-interesting. The one thing I want to be able to answer by the time this class is over is “Why is it some people have really good memory and just others don’t?”

Hello class!

1. I choose to take this class because it is a pre-med requirement along with my interest for psychology.
2. When I think of the word “psychology” I associate the brain, thoughts, and how the brain works. The suffix ology reminds me of the phrase the study of.
3. The three topics that look most interesting to me include, memory revival, sleep, and personality theory. I am interested in memory revival because it has always been one of my struggles to memorize things whether it be for a test or just in general. Sleep is something that I could definitely use more of, I want to learn what goes behind sleep and how it works. Every person is different and I’ve always been curious as to why people are different and what make each individual special so I was gravitated towards personality.
4. Three topics that look the least interesting to me include, Experimental Design, Classical Conditioning, and Operant Conditioning. These topics look the least interesting to me because these topics have already been covered in other courses, the thought of learning them again is a bit dull.
5. One question that I want to be able to answer by the end of this class is: How does sleep work? I am interested in sleep since I have trouble sleeping and staying asleep.

Best,

Simran Likhari