Social Structure's Impact on Individual Identity: A Study on Melvin Affandy

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Social structure has shaped the characteristics and the aspirations of Melvin Affandy, an Indonesian studying in University of Washington. Sometimes people fail to see that the identity of a person is subjected to his/her societal background. This is the result of people not having a quality of mind (sociological imagination) which disconnects their understanding of the tight relationship between social structure and what the person has become. Hence, I am going to analyse my subject from his societal background. By doing an interview, I extracted a statement describing how he perceives himself. These statements, if analysed, indicates how the social structure around Melvin has impacted him this way. In this paper, I am going to discuss about …show more content…

This decision is a result from a demand from his parents for Melvin to get an idea of a company and gain experience for that matter. He choses to get along with it as a result of the thought that he needs to gain work experience which is the result of the target set by universities and job positions, since most of universities and companies prefers applicants with more hands on experience. He is able to get a position in a famous company in Indonesia because he got the connection from his society in his school. He had a friend whose father works for Indofood, which enables him to get his position. His business oriented family (since his father works as a financial manager) shaped his preference for a job in the Investor Relations Department which revolves around economics. Moreover, he mentioned about his inability to speak fluent Bahasa Indonesia. This is the result of him going to International School, in which the first person is English, and the fact that both of his parents are able to speak in …show more content…

His preference to study abroad in University of Washington is the outcome of the social structure. Firstly, he went to an International School in which most students go abroad for their education. More specifically he chose the US because of his family’s economic background that favours the study in US. since the cost of living is much cheaper than in his secondary choice of country, UK. Secondly, he took IB examination, which limits his options with universities abroad than in his country. Lastly, his first language is English, which suits the language of students in United

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