--Original published at Marisa Psych Blog
Hello. My name is Marisa Krinock and this is the start to my sophomore year at Elizabethtown College. I am a Criminal Justice major with minors in History as well as Pre-law. I am an athlete at this college as a member of the volleyball team. I love the field I am pursuing and believe this course will help me tremendously as I continue to learn different areas and parts of this work.
I chose to take this class because I honestly am interested in the subject and concept of psychology. I do believe that this course is also recommended to take with my major and rightfully so. Not only do I think that understanding human behaviors as well as how others process information important, but very crucial to how society runs and functions as a whole. I have always found psychology interesting. Studying how people act and seeing the make up of brain chemicals that par-take in everyday things such as emotions or even thinking is very intriguing in my personal opinion.
I do not have a background in the subject of psychology. I did however take a basic psychology class in high school and loved it. In that class we focused on nature vs. nuture scenarios. We discussed a number of very debatable topics. One of my favorite discussions we had was based on serial killers. It was based on whether or not the students felt if certain chosen serial killers we discussed were predisposed to certain things in society, difficult home lives, or mental imbalances and how they contributed to there actions. Looking into the psychological aspect of there actions, we could try to find an answer of why. Why are people different from one another and what are main factors in their actions, such as the ones these killers possessed.
When I here the word “psychology”, I think of the mind. Each person has different makeup. This includes variables of background, parents, home life, economical status, education, location of living and much more. All of these variables contribute to the life one lives and how they live it. Psychology is a branch of science that gives a sense of understanding in why. How and why do people process and act in certain scenarios? This question is not an easy one to answer, but psychology gives steps and different factors that establish a starting platform. Being able to measure and control different aspects and components in someones life can be observed. These observations create data in the levels of science, behavior and mental processes in which humans have on a daily basis. All of these are tide to the mind in one way or another.
After looking into the course syllabus, I found three topics that do intrigue me. The topic of, “What is “Addiction?”” interests me on a personal level as I have seen that throughout my immediate family. In my opinion, addiction is different for everyone. Yes, it is measurable, but everyone has different reasons and contributions to their addictions. Another topic I found interesting was “How to improve memory.” I have an awful long term memory in my opinion. I don’t remember much of my life before the start of middle school. This interests me because my sister can remember small little details from when we were little kids that I don’t even remember happened. And lastly, I found “Psychotic, Traumatic, and Personality Disorders” interesting. I don’t know a lot of about this topic which is the main reason it interests me. Three topics that didn’t really catch my eye or that I would personally think were interested consisted of “Obedience”, “Psychiatric Medication”, and “How to chose a Therapist”. All of these topics didn’t catch because of the titles. I am person that looks and covers of books and decides if they look interesting from that. I hope I learn something not just from these subjects, but all of them.
One question that I would like to get an answer to throughout the span of this intro psychology class is based off addiction. I want to learn more about the different elements of this very big issue in todays society. I don’t think there is really a direct answer, so I am looking for a thicker sense of understanding aspects of it. Why is it such a huge issue in todays world, and how can it possibly be contained or even reduced? This is my question for this course.