Final Blog

My Time In Psychology

So at the beginning of my time in psychology, I really doubted that I would be all that interested or able to even use it in my life but as we progressed the semester I actually fell in love with this course. This course opened my mind.. about the human mind and I loved every second of it.

The first module stood out to me by showing me what psychology is and giving me a better understanding of what I was getting into.This module really set a basis for the semester and gave me an idea of how I could use it throughout my life.  With multiple different varieties of psychology and fields of study we are all in some form or fashion going to be able to use this course throughout our lives.  This module and task was honestly the one that really stuck out. In this module we were asked to research a specific branch of psychology that interested us. Possibly being a coach and being a current athlete I choose sports psychology. I learned that I honestly really could have used someone in this profession earlier in the year as I went through a rough patch in my life and my athletic career. With the knowledge I now have, I can recommend my peers or future players to a sports psychologist for help.  Module 1 Task 

Psychology- the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context.

As we progressed into Module 2 we began to learn about our brain and its behavior and also about our sensations and perceptions. A few of the big points that stuck out to me about brain and behavior is that our brain is about the same size when we are a young child as it is when we are adults. Another idea that was new to me is that we are not left brained or right brained, growing up I didn't know much about the brain but as a teen I was introduced to this idea which is totally false. Not only are we not left brained or right brained but we can also function without a part of our brain. The parts of the brain that are still functional just take over for what was lost. John Sartin actually wrote an amazing blog about a girl who underwent a procedure to remove the right hemisphere of her brain. Johns Blog
This blog actually really made me understand this part of the lesson and showed me the truly inspirational story of a young six year old girl. Before reading this blog and watching the video of this young girl, I didn't really believe that we could function normally without part of our brain. This experimental task was one of my favorites because I was able to teach my future brother in law how the brain works while getting to play with playto.This task was to build my own model of a brain with a person under the age of nine and to teach them what each part of the brain does/controls. Build Your Brain After brain and behavior we moved on to sensation and perception. Sensation is the physical processing of stimuli through our sensory organs while perception is how we interpret this info. Sensation and Perception

Now on to Module 3.

Module 3 was Developmental Psychology and Personality. Developmental Psychology- study of age related changes in behavior and mental processes and stages of growth. During our studies of developmental psychology we learned that our development can be separated into 4 different categories. While learning of these categories we then began an in class debated. Nature or nurture, which is more influential in our development. I took the side of nurture in class and we were then actually assigned a blog on this debate. The experimental task for this module was actually fairly simple and fun. We were told to make a diagram of our past, present and future to show our physical development through out our years. After our debates were settled and in the books we transitioned to personality. Personality is characterized in the form of traits that can be measured by a personality test.

Module 4 here we come.

This section of our class we learned about learning and memory. Module 4 was honestly really interesting and full of cool experiments. Experiments such as Pavlovs classical condition experiment stuck out over many others. This experiment taught us that we can be condition to through time to know and expect certain out comes just from a specific stimuli. Over time we learn that a specific stimuli means a specific thing. Pavlov learned this through experimenting with dogs by using the stimuli of a bell to see if they would then relate it to a specific out come such as receiving food. After reading and studying about this experiment and others like it I began to question if maybe I had ever been condition by others. I then even decided to try to condition my fiancée to do certain things for me such as getting me a drink but that didn't work all to well...lol. Once learning was wrapped up we began to work on memory. We learned about both implicit and explicit memory and then the different varieties such as short term, long term and sensory.

Module 5 was about Motivations, Emotions, and Social Psychology.

Emotion- natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. Social Psychology- study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by actual, implied, or imagined presence of others. Studying how we think about and interpret ourselves and others is social cognition. We make snap judgements about people. We form our views on verbal and nonverbal behaviors. This module was okay but not my favorite but I was able to talk about the motivation and persistence of my sister. Module 5 Psych Story
Module 6

This module was by far my favorite of them all. It was over Psychological disorders and therapy. Throughout this module we had multiple therapist and people with disorders such as PTSD and depression come and speak to use about mental illness and the therapies that can be used to combat them. As a person who struggles with depression being able to learn about depression and different types of therapy that can be used to help with it really gave me confidence. I gave me the knowledge that I am not the only person who struggles with a mental disorder and that it will be ok. Both personally and professionally I feel that I can now succeed because I don't have to worry about my disorder because there are treatments for it. Hell, if it ever gets worse maybe I can even have my own service dog to help me out. This module also produced my favorite student activity lead by John Sartin. John called me to the front of the classroom and played a soundtrack of what it was like to be schizophrenic which was actually very concerning. This opportunity was both fun and enlightening. It gave me an insight on what some people go through daily and gave me a greater appreciation for the people who are able to deal with this problem on the daily.

Module 7/ Positive psychology

In this final module we were taught that positive psychology is to not just increase happiness, but human flourishing. This module came not only with multiple lectures and an experimental task but many challenges. We were challenged to do acts of kindness and even make up our own perfect day. We were taught to look on the bright side of things and to not let the bad things bring us down. We were even shown in and student led activity that it was a lot easier to come up with the good in our lives than the bad so why focus on the minority of time that sucks when we can focus on the good.


EXTRA INFO

Favorite Classes were student led activity or our classes outside in which we were taught things in a hands on fashion.
Best Comment left on a post of mine was by Mariela Garcia just because I had spoken about some of the things I had struggled with in my past year and she just let me know that she was there to help if I ever needed it. Her Comment on this Blog
Favorite Blogger was Daniel Beal. He never ceased to amaze me. His writings were always spectacular and full of connections to his faith and his future in the church. They were helpful and insightful and often provided information that I didn't already know or expanded on information that I was taught in class.
Videos- the video readings were very helpful for the fact that they provide extra information or a reiteration of something we had learned in class. I honestly didn't use the ted talks but I'm sure they would have been very helpful also.