1:1 INTRODUCTION
by maya sumel
Hi everyone! I am really looking forward to reading all of your blog posts this semester, and being able to comment and communicate with you all! I work full-time at Vancity Credit Union, so all of my classes are online. I am a fourth-year student and am majoring in Psychology, and plan to graduate in May 2021 after completing five years at UBC. I was born and raised in Vancouver, so this truly is home for me. My favourite areas of study are the neuroscience of motivation, the study of childhood and aging, and personality development. This past semester I studied abroad in Paris, and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. While in Paris, one of my favourite courses I took was a smart and popular culture course, which focused on decolonization and feminist movements across Europe and America. I had never traveled to Europe before, and the culture shock was quite extreme. I took courses in 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century European history and French language courses.
In English 372, I am excited to review and learn more about Canadian literature and analyze the intersections between European and Indigenous traditions of literature. This course offers a much larger scope of information I have not been exposed to, which makes me extremely eager to learn. In my first year at UBC, I took GRSJ 224. Throughout this course, my favourite topic we learned about was the male gaze. My professor was able to relate the male gaze to so many different commercials, movies, and societal views. I also learned about the nation-state, and the struggle the Indigenous peoples are facing against the Canadians, which includes the destruction of their land and the extraction of oil (which is also destroying the land). In the GRSJ course, I also reviewed many different terms, and one was ‘White Privilege’, which is an invisible backpack of unearned basic assets that provide White people with the comfort they do not realize they are lucky to have. This was a term that was eye-opening as I felt it could be broadened as a first-world privilege backpack as well – being born in a first world country with free clean water, a roof over your head, and a bed to sleep in.
I am looking forward to participating in this online course. I have taken many online courses before in different areas such as Psychology and ADHE, and I enjoyed how each professor made the course interactive in different ways. The ADHE course I took used the UBC blogs as a platform and I found it to be a really good way to get the students interacting with each other in a comfortable atmosphere, and an easy way to share my thoughts. My favourite online Psychology class was the one I took last summer on research methods, and our final project was a video of ourselves reporting our hypothetical experiment we would conduct, outlining the introductions, methods, findings and discussion areas. I found this to be extremely interesting and engaging as a student! I am most excited for the group research paper, which will allow me to collaborate my ideas with other peers in this class.
Thank you to everyone for taking the time to read my blog and learn a bit more about me! I am looking forward to getting started with the course and reading all of your blog posts.
Works Cited:
The Local fr. “The French Culture Shocks You Should Be Prepared For.” The Local, 22 Jan. 2018, www.thelocal.fr/20180122/french-culture-shocks-that-no-one-tells-you-about.
Loreck, Janice, and School of Media. “Explainer: What Does the ‘Male Gaze’ Mean, and What about a Female Gaze?” The Conversation, 21 Oct. 2019, theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486.
Hi Maya,
Wow I don’t know how you do it! Working full-time and having classes is amazing. How many classes are you doing this term? I wish you luck while doing so many classes!! I’m taking an online psych class and I’m pretty nervous taking an online class outside of the english department. I would love any tips!
I’ve only been to Paris for a short amount of time. (I’m also a Vancouver girl) What were the biggest culture shocks while being there? I would also love to know more about the decolonization and feminist movements across Europe. Do you have any recommended reads on the topic?
Thank you!
Lisa
Hi Lisa! Thank you for your kind words of support and encouragement! I think that determination is the ultimate key to success, and I just force myself to try my hardest everyday! I am taking 4 classes this term – 2 of them are psychology classes, and both of them are online.
Some tips for my online psychology classes – stay up to date with the readings and make notes as you go! I try to force myself to do each chapter as if I were being tested on it the next day, that way when the midterm comes or the final, all I have to do is review the content.
I think the biggest culture shock for me was the language barrier, and to be quite frank, they are generally really rude there and nationalistic! They refer to Canadians as Americans, and group us together as well – and as we know, being from Canada, we are very different from the United States of America. Linda Nochlin “why have there been no great women artists” is a great read! Another great one is Stuart Hall “cultural identity and diaspora”. I enjoyed reading both of these articles as they touch on issues in the UK and Europe, which we don’t hear about a lot or experience/see first hand.
Thanks!
Maya
Hi Maya,
I just wanted to point out that we have some similarities, I’m also a psychology major, studying full time at a recruiting agency, and that’s why I am taking online courses. Although, I’ll take a hard pass on saying Research Methods was my favourite course, I was more into personality and social psychology.
Anyways …..
You mentioned the invisible backpack of white privilege, I would like to ask you, do you have any thoughts on how white privilege would affect Indigenous literature/culture? I have some thoughts of my own, but would like to hear from you first!
Hi Sashini!
We do have quite a few similarities! I do agree that Research Methods is a hit or miss class and not everyone enjoys it. What psychology classes are you taking right now and how many? How do you find the work and school balance while working full time and being a student?
In terms of the invisible backpack, I think it also applies to me greatly. While Peggy McIntosh states it’s a White Privilege backpack, I think I am also privileged by being born in Canada. A few things that are basic that are in my backpack are access to free health care, free public transportation provided through student tuition, a roof over my head, clean drinking water, access to public and privatized education, access to food, clean clothes, and so many other things. I think when you unpack this backpack, as mentioned in the article, you find things you don’t even think of, since they are just ‘normal’ for us.
In terms of Indigenous culture, I think colonisation of their land and us forcing them off of it due to money and power and resources would be a strong one. We study and live on unceded territory that was stolen from Indigenous peoples, which is something that people look over time and time again.
What are some things you would find in your backpack? And what were your thoughts?
Thanks,
Maya
Good day Maya, I am just working on your comment sheet now – but thought I’d include this link to an opinion piece that I read online the other day: The Unbearable Whiteness of Tourism”
https://medium.com/@indica/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-tourism-c6ea653b32dc