My life has been a never-ending quest for harmony. I have never liked conflict, so when faced with one, I would try my best to resolve it. In my childhood and adolescence, this quest of mine earned me the role of peacemaker among my friends during arguments. While I have found few situations in which I can use my peacemaking skills as a young adult, my need for harmony has now become a thirst for knowledge and for clean explanations of the hard-to-explain.
In my first semester at Wellesley College, I took a survey course in psychology out of sheer curiosity. Students tend to feel like they know everything there is to know about human behavior and cognition after taking the survey course, and I was the same way. However, with each higher level
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I designed a study that explored the role of experience on adults’ iconic gestures, as a follow-up study to the one with children’s gestures. I was able to apply the knowledge I gained through classes to the work I did for that independent research. For example, I first heard of mirror neurons in a class I took exploring the development of children’s theory of mind. These neurons do not distinguish between some of our own actions and the actions of others, firing during both instances. While I had learned about the neurons in the context of imitation, I ended up later using this knowledge to shape the experimental design for my study on adult gestures. That is, I asked myself if simply watching a demonstration of a novel object would build the same level of motor representation as using the object yourself. This kind of drawing from conceptual knowledge for applications in research is the kind of work I want to continue doing long after I leave my undergraduate …show more content…
The School’s mission to provide an intensive year of psychological study aligns with my desire to not only gain a stronger understanding of psychology topics, but also apply the knowledge gained to shed light on the current debates in the field. There is also the opportunity to do a directed study, for which I hope to either extend or explore topics related to the research I started at Wellesley. In particular, I am interested in the work of Boston University’s Professor Deborah Kelemen, for her interests in cognitive development and social categories are similar to my own
Throughout the semester i only learned few new things but i did improve and solidify my skill of writing. Before my first year of college my skills have always undermined by other high school english teachers and with that came disappointing grades. I am writing this paper as a reflection of the semester and the progress i have made as a writer. I now understand many things that my high school teachers have done a poor job demonstrating and i am grateful that i decided to take my own route in my education instead of their syllabus. I entered the semester with anxiety that i would perform as i did before but i clearly outdid my own expectations by receiving top grades on my essays.
English has never been my best subject. Reading books can be exciting, but the writing aspect of English can be dreadful. Somehow, however, I passed all my advanced English classes with at least a B, and my teachers always considered me to be “above average.” My impartiality toward English shifted to an indifference near the end of my high school career; my indifference then shifted to appreciation. This appreciation is attributed to American Studies and Honors Writing, the most difficult English classes at Belleville East Township High School. American Studies and Honors Writing have strengthened my writing skills beyond what I believed possible. I still do not believe that I am the best writer, and English may never be my best or favorite
Throughout my undergraduate study of psychology, I selected challenging classes that were research oriented, in order to develop the skills needed for future careers in
English 111 was different from what I expected a college English course to be. I was expecting to have to read books and analyze the meaning of the themes. I found it challenging to have to analyze different websites and design our own. This was different from what I experienced in high school English classes. This course required that I expand beyond my comfort zone when writing essays. This required that I put more time and dedication into projects. It allowed me to learn valuable skills to use in other courses in college and I learned what abilities I need to concentrate on. I carry with me the abilities to use rhetoric devices to analyze websites, research techniques to polish the ethos of my papers, and the knowledge that I need to refine using other sources of media (i.e. websites, PowerPoints, etc.) to present an argument from English 111.
Coming into this experience, I questioned where I would find my place in the Senate. In 2014 I came here as a page and was able to witness daily floor action, but I never had the opportunity to be a part of day to day office business. I knew I would be at the bottom of the totem pole as an intern, but I wanted to feel as if I was making an impact on Senator Reid’s last year in office. In an office as large as Harry Reid’s it is hard to feel as if you are making an impact. I had the misconception that I would be working closely with him; however, thus far I have only spoken with the Senator one time. Within the first week I readjusted my expectations to try and find my role within the office. I was still doubting the impact I would make here this summer. With the Senator retiring, the office is tending to run particularly slow. When available, work was handed down to us by the Legislative Correspondents. Work primarily consisted of covering hearings, attending briefings, and doing research. When given the opportunity, I have worked as hard as possible to complete tasks to my best ability in hopes of getting more work in the future. As I may
I signed up for English 131 because I enjoy writing and figured it would be a fun and informative course in which I could learn writing strategies to help me in my college career and beyond. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good writer, as I took AP English classes in high school and it has always been a subject I’ve naturally gravitated towards. This course exceeded my expectations as to what I could learn in ten weeks. I feel that my writings skills have developed in all aspects, and I can take the skills I have learned and applied them to other courses and my future career. It’s an extremely good feeling after finishing an assignment, reading it over, and feeling very proud of how I was able to develop my thoughts and resources into something that has the potential to make a lasting impact on its readers.
Over the course of my undergraduate career, my exposure to the field of psychology gave way
My first semester at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has been everything that I expected it to be. I knew it would be strenuous to move to a new city totally different from what I had grown up in. I also know that this would put a strain on making new friends, keeping up with my social life, maintaining a healthy mental and physical and healthy lifestyle, and achieving my goals - nonetheless, I have managed to do all of these things and have a splendid time doing so.
To what extent if any has your knowledge of psychology helped you to understand other people and grow as a person?
I spent four years of my life in rural Plymouth, NH, surrounded by trees, wildlife, and white people. My private boarding high school was a drastic change from growing up in the Bronx, NY. It was quiet. At times the silence was peaceful but it was also a reminder that I was far from home. There wasn’t any public transportation; people had to use cars to travel. At night, the sky lit up with hundreds of beautiful bright stars; a rare sight in the city. Almost every faculty member that lived on campus either had a new born baby, dog or both. The majority of the faculty was white heterosexual males though there were women as well, but none of which were of color. In my four years attending Holderness, there were only two faculty members of color,
I wish I could write my younger self a letter. I want to tell her all the amazing things that will happen in college and not to be so worried, but I also want to tell her the bad things that happen. I know time travel does not exist, so I cannot, and young me would be mad at current me for spoiling stuff. Instead I write this reflection on what I think have been important lessons I learned from my first semester of college.
At age five I entered my first day of school at James Foster elementary school with all of my fears packed up in my backpack, my favorite white and pink dress on and pig tails in my hair I was ready to conquer my first day of kindergarten. This day was going to start the rest of my educational history. As I waited with my mom to get in our lines to go to class I got overwhelmed with emotions of fear and doubt and began to cry which is normal for a kindergartener to do on the first day, in the midst of that I made a friend named Kara, my best friend to this day all because we cried having the same fears and doubts walking in to our first day together. We then met our teacher Mrs. Spencer she was kind, friendly and spunky and one of the most
Over the course of the semester, I feel that I have grown as a writer in many ways. When I came into the class, there were skills I had that I already excelled at. During my time in class, I have come to improve on those skills even more. Before I took this class I didn’t even realise what I was good at. This is the first class where I felt I received feedback on my writing that helped me to actually review my work in see what areas I lacked in and where I succeeded. Some of the skills I had shocked me as I didn’t think I had those capabilities in me.
To tell a story is to expand tragedies, to spread the comedies, and to share the love and wisdom throughout humanity. Poets, musicians, authors, philosophers and even aristocrats have stories to tell. As a college student and aspiring author, I will share my story at the boundary of this realm. I will proceed to claim myself to be an adequate student and dispute the reason for this by comparing a mediocre student in contrast to me, a much more sophisticated student.
Much like Benjamin Franklin believed, I feel that a person should take advantage of the time the person has in life with activities a person wants to do or needs to do. A person should not spend much time on activities the person does not want to do. Life is way too short to concern oneself with work or other activities one wants nothing to do with all the time. When possible, I try to forget about my responsibility and just let go of the ‘things’ that do not matter to me. I think a person should try to occupy oneself with something productive, worthwhile, or necessary at all times. Even though a person’s life is left up to a person to live, I cannot imagine thinking that I owe my time to society through working a job that I simply despise. I am a compassionate person, but I do not owe anyone anything regarding my time.