--Original published at Ariana's Blog

Hi! My name is Ariana Serillo and I am a freshman Occupational Therapy major. I grew up in Whippany NJ and graduated at Whippany Park High School. I am loving my time at Elizabethtown College so far. 

I am taking this course because I need it to continue on in the occupational therapy program. With that being said, I am excited to take this class because I think it will be very interesting to learn about. I do not have much experience in psychology other than Human Development, which was a class I took in high school. This class just scratched the surface of psychology.

When I think of psychology, I think of people going to therapy to work out issues in their life. I also think of certain mental disorders and why people act the way they do in different situations.

Three topics that I am interested to learn about is Traumatic and Personality Disorders. I have done research on some personality disorders in high school and found them very interesting, so I would like to see it explained from a psychology standpoint. Mood Disorders and Anxiety also sounds interesting because I have anxiety when it comes to certain things and I would like to know why that is. Lastly, I am excited to learn about Coping with Stress. Three topics that I am less interested in are the Scientific Method, Research, and Experiments. Those topics just don’t appeal to me as much as the other topics we are covering later in the semester. 

By the end of this class, I would like to know what establishes a personality and also how to successfully cope with the stress we have in our lives on a daily basis. I am looking forward to a great semester.