Final Learning Reflection

       Being in Dr. Selvaraj's Intro to Psychology, we discussed a lot from week one to week fifteen. In weeks one and two we spent a lot of time getting to know each other and Dr. Selvaraj taught us how to run our blogs, since it was most of our first times blogging. We talked about the different branches of Psychology; I did not know there are so many. Sports Psychology is a specific branch that interest me because I want to be a physical therapist and I am able to apply this branch to that because it deals with helping athletes by using psychological principals to achieve their greatest mental health, as well as to improve their athletic performance. It accomplishes these things by allowing people to get a better grasp of how participation in sports, exercise and physical activity affects an individual’s psychological development, health and personal well-being throughout their lives. But one of the most interesting things that I took from this lesson was the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist; that being a psychiatrist is able to prescribe medication, while a psychologist is not.

       In weeks three and four we talked about the brain, sensation, and perception. Our brain controls so many functions of our body without us even having to be consciously thinking about doing it. Throughout Dr. Selvaraj’s lecture this point was highlighted for me and it really made my appreciation for my brain greater. We learned that our brain has three main parts, each with their own specific function: hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain. But what really stuck with me in was that the midbrain correlates with Parkinson, it being a caused by a damaged section near the midbrain. This was important to me because my grandfather suffers from Parkinson’s and it was just interesting to know now where the source of his problem comes from. In this module, I also watched the TED Talk that I thought was the most interesting TED Talk of the whole semester. It was by Carl Schoonover on the Golgi stain, also known as chemical staining. It is the way in which neuroscientist are able to see neurons and cells in the certain tissue that they are looking at. It is one of the things that has given us such an advancement of knowledge of the nerve cells, the neuron. The really interesting part about this stain to me was the fact that use a green fluorescent protein that comes from a bio-luminescent jellyfish. The fact that we use a protein from a jellyfish to conduct such an important research on our brains amazes me. For Sensation and Perceptions, the visuals in the power point presented during the lecture were the biggest part of me understand them better; sensation being the way we physical perceive things and perception being the psychological way of interpreting and using that information. To demonstrate this further we looked at illusions and the effect that they have on us.

       In weeks five and six week discussed Developmental Psychology and Personality. We discussed Nature vs. Nurture, nature saying that development is governed by automatic genetically predetermined signals. I found this study most interesting with twins because I am a twin. I also really enjoyed learning about personalities and what personality type I am according to Carl G. Jung test, INFJ. I really liked studying this module because I think it is important in understand how people become who they are as well as understand who they are. It even helped us understand ourselves better.

       In weeks seven and eight, we talked about learning and memory. In psychology ‘learning’ is different than just your educational learning of facts, it has to deal with our experiences and what we learn from what we have gone through. A man named, Clive Wearing, is said to have the worst case of amnesia ever. Amnesia is the inability to remember events for a period of time due that could be due to brain injury or illness. In Wearings case he is only able to remember between 7 to 30 seconds, then he forgets. His short-term memory is unable to store the information being given to it. I can understand loss of memory because my grandmother, along with many other of my family members, passed away from Alzheimer, which is a disease that takes away the memory and the ability to function of the person that has it. The experiential task of ‘creating a false and serial memory effect’ was really fun to do and I loved any of the task that I could incorporate showing others what we had learned in class because they would always find it interesting. This task was interesting in itself though just to see what we had learned in class in action. Actually, seeing it in this example and in the exercise that we did during Dr. Selvaraj's lecture made me more aware of this effect.

       In weeks 10 and 11, went over motivations, emotions, and Social Psychology. In Dr. Selvaraj’s lecture she talked about the difference of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic being because ‘I wanted to’ & extrinsic being because ‘I want – in return.” She discussed our motivation for going to college and it being intrinsic or extrinsic. It made me think about how I am not just here because I need a degree but because I do want to gain a greater knowledge. Aylin and I did the group task for week 10; we learned a lot while putting the task together. Just having to think about what would motivate our classmates to want to go on our scavenger hunt and then to put emotions with different areas of the campus. Working with Aylin, and setting the activity up, just made this one of my favorite group tasks. Social Psychology is the influence that other people have on our thoughts, feels, and actions; and studying the way that we relate to each other. In week 11, we went out onto the football field, this was one of my favorite activities that we did because the visual aspect really made the impact of the lesson last and stick with me. Anyone that wants to work with people, like I do, would benefit from understanding social psychology since it is how we think about others. It is the impressions that we form of people and the facial features, tone of voice and gestures that we convey and make.

       In weeks 12 and 13, we discussed Psychological Disorders and Therapy. Psychological disorder is an abnormal pattern of behaviors, thoughts, or emotions considered pathological. I think understanding exactly what a psychological disorder is important because people can make immediate assumptions when hearing that a person has a certain disorder. There are so many disorders and I was unaware of just how many there are. Understanding that there is more than just one approach to therapy is important if you are seeking therapy or want to go into that field. I enjoyed learning about Psychological Disorders because I have some very close family members and friends who suffer from psychological disorders and it is was really helpful to become more educated with what they are dealing with.

       In weeks 14 and 15, we discussed Positive Psychology. I loved talking about positive psychology because it is about positive reinforcement and flourishing. It also involves helping and showing kindness to others; and that is something that I have a passion for doing, so I really love the idea of this psychology. It is the science of happiness and well-being. The 6 Fs that make people happy are: Family, Finance, Forgiveness, Faith, Fun, & Future. Knowing what makes yourself happy as well as others happy is important in living a good life and is that not the goal that we all have.

       Throughout this course we did several experiential tasks, but my favorite one that I did was Jacob’s Story. The blog was about multiculturalism, so I asked Jacob to share his story about growing up in a multicultural family. He was adopted from the Marshal Islands, and he tells you about his life and about how his family and how their love for him really shaped him into who he is today in the video linked on my blog. The two people that blog’s that I found to be most helpful each week were Emelia and Jordan’s blogs. Their blogs were very well organized. I also thought that they kept their blogs very interesting each week. Aylin always left the kindest and most helpful comments on my blogs. She was always very personal in her comments as well. I also loved reading her blogs!

       The topic that stood out to me the most in affecting my personal life was the study of Psychological Disorders. This stood out to me, because like I have said, I have a lot of people in my life that are close to me that suffer from a Psychological Disorder. Two being my mother and my twin sister; they both suffer from depression. I was able to write a blog post about them if you would like to learn more about how they live their lives with depression. By learning more about these disorders, I am better prepared to be able to help others and just be able to understand what they are going through to the best of my ability. What stood out to me from this course that will affect my professional life comes from week 10 and 11, when we talked about motivations, emotions, and Social Psychology. The topic that stood out to me the most was Maslow’s Hierarchy, which talks about our needs. It ranks our needs from lower to higher being; physiological, safety, belonging & love, esteem, and self-actualization. I think knowing Maslow’s Hierarchy will help me better understand people. Knowing that people see self-actualization as their main need over all is an important aspect. Since I want to be a physical therapist I can see how understanding this belief of people’s wants and needs is important in helping them in whatever their personal reason for being at physical therapy. Psychology as a whole, I believe helps one become better equipped in understanding people. I have learned a lot in this course and I really enjoyed taking it.