Celebrating Psychology

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  krystalv 2:05 am on November 1, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  I can’t lie, before I entered my introductory psychology class, I thought that psychology was common sense. Oh how wrong I was. So many myths were debunked and I learned how to critically look at research and the claims people make. I am more skeptical and able to identify potential sources of pseudoscience, something a lot of my friends cannot. I still enjoy many films and popular culture, but I am no longer ignorant to the ways they manipulate psychological findings for entertainment value. Before I just believed them all to be true!

  I was taught how to learn and now know how to effectively study, creating desirable difficulties for myself in order to really learn and understand the material for the long term, not just memorize it for the short term. I learned the value of sleep! Inevitably it happens, but I try to avoid forsaking sleep for study because I know how ineffective that can be. Because of Psychology 100, I’ve tried (although it is a struggle) to create a sleep pattern that is both beneficial and consistent. This has helped me, no doubt, since.

  As I continue my academic journey and my life in general, I am armed with more information that I can use to inform others (about memory loss and brain damage, sleep, how to study, the right vs left brain phenomenon, mental health, multiple intelligences). And most importantly, I can officially tell (and explain) to people why we use much more than 10% of our brains!

   

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  Veronika Bondarenko 3:48 pm on October 30, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Unlike many of the other courses I took… 

  Unlike many of the other courses I took in my first year of university, I walked into my first Introductory Psychology class thinking that I already knew a great deal about the nature of people’s behaviour, simply from being around people my whole life. The course challenged some of those “common sense” beliefs and showed me that, while very good for certain things, common sense cannot always be relied upon when trying to figure why people do what they do. For example, I was fascinated to learn that, contrary to popular belief, the likelihood of being helped in an emergency actually decreases when the number of people around you increases. While seeming to be counterintuitive at first, this finding started to make much more sense after learning about concepts like pluralistic ignorance and diffusion of responsibility.

  I also enjoyed learning about the differences between basic tendencies and characteristic adaptations, or the fact that while two people may have the same underlying personality traits (for example, they may both enjoy taking risks), the way that they express those traits may differ dramatically (one may turn to crime and the other to being a pilot or a firefighter). In other words, people with the same basic tendencies can, depending on various factors, many of which are unknown, express them in very different ways. Isn’t that cool?

   
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  Zahra 5:28 pm on October 29, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  After pondering over the plethora of things that… 

  After pondering over the plethora of things that I find so fascinating in Psychology, I have to say that my awe for the subject is rooted in one sentence: Psychology is a Science. I remember the summer before university, when I was trying to choose an elective for first year. Many people suggested I take psychology; it immediately got thrown in the same bin as Philosophy, a not-so-liked option. Albeit my skepticism, I ended up registering for the year-long course. Boy, was I wrong about Philosophy and Psychology having so much in common. Psychology is a standardized science; researchers conduct studies and manipulate variables; they draw conclusions which are limited by the kind of study they did; psychological, social, AND biological aspects are taken into consideration when analyzing data and everyday phenomena. Now in second year, I love psychology, and take as many electives in the subject as I can!

   
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  tpierce 8:35 am on October 28, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Dawning realization 

  It’s hard to pin down the most profound thing I learned in Psychology, but I guess I would have to say that it was more of the dawning realization that I had while learning about neurons, neurotransmitters, and brain chemistry. At some point it just hit me that everything I have and will do is because of tiny chemical reactions in my skull, and that the same is true for everyone. I’m still rationalizing this fact today, and every now and then I think to myself: “That [conversation, action, thought, etc.] was incredibly complex, but given enough time and resources, I could probably find a chemical background for every part of it.” It’s kind of scary, but definitely awesome!

  Jason Lam is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Jason Lam 9:25 am on October 28, 2011 Permalink | Reply

    Ah yes, the epiphany. When the epiphany hits you, you will be amazed at how life makes sense without needing to smoke weed. Hope you have more in the future!

    PS: What’s psychology like so far?

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  admin 3:12 pm on September 29, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Psychology is a fascinating discipline that spans a… 

  Psychology is a fascinating discipline that spans a variety of topic areas. We draw thousands of students to our courses each year. We invite you to help us build this website to celebrate the most interesting ideas you have learned from taking psychology courses. Every student who is currently enrolled in a psychology course at UBC is invited to contribute a sentence or a video answering the following question:

  Please post a comment: What’s the most interesting thing you have learned from your psychology course(s)?

  (Note that we reserve the right to remove offensive material.)