Why I Love Psychology

I wrote the following essay as an entry for a $500 scholarship. The prompt was extremely open ended:

Requirements: Junior or Senior Stevenson College student
Majoring in Psychology and/or Legal Studies
Demonstrated academic excellence

Application: Submit a two-page statement explaining how you meet the scholarship requirements.
Include information regarding your background, interests, future plans and potential major(s).

So I basically wrote about why I love Psychology, what I've done with it so far, and what I hope to do with it in the future. I felt that this essay was blog-worthy, so here it is.

(Oh, and I also won the scholarship. :P)

-------------------------

As a child, I spent a great deal of time traversing the roads of America with my parents. One of the primary consequences of such a hobby is getting to meet lots and lots of people.

There's a wide variety of interactions you can have while on the road. There are those people who are little more than nameless faces you catch a glimpse of from your car window. There are those you meet for thirty seconds, then never again. There are those who you have the chance to talk with just for a few minutes, and, though your time together was brief, they make a lasting impression on you. Then there are those who will gladly share their entire life's story if you have the endurance to listen for long enough.

I couldn't begin to count the people I've met in these twenty-one years. But even if I don't remember the vast majority of those individuals, the effect of having passed, ghost-like, through so many lives has been profound. Having gotten firsthand some idea of just how many people exist in this world made me determined to understand them better, to perceive that crowd as more than just a fast-moving blur. Then one day, I discovered Psychology, and things suddenly started clicking into place.

When I took my first Introduction to Psychology class, I knew I had stumbled across something amazing. It was unbelievable how much I found myself enjoying the material, never bored, always enthusiastic about learning more. Before I'd had no idea what I wanted my life to look like. But with Psychology, it was suddenly obvious what path I wanted to take.

I have spent the last four years immersed in the field of Psychology, which I think of as the study of people. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than to learn about the research behind the behavior I witness in myself and those around me every day. To begin to discover why we are the way we are seems like a miracle, like turning the lights on in a world which had, till then, been very dim.
At this point, I have found myself unexpectedly on the far side of my undergraduate career. When I made the realization that, soon, Psychology would mean more than taking notes and passing tests, I made the effort to throw myself headfirst into the field.

I started with research, connecting with my professors to find a place in their labs. I was intrigued at the idea of seeing Psychology in the making, as its academic minds attempted to solve the unsolved mysteries. I worked for five months as a Research Assistant, and was introduced to hot-off-the-press work that was being done in the field of Cognitive Psychology. I saw what life in the lab was really like, meeting with participants as I collected data. It was eye-opening, to be sure, getting a glimpse of the nuts and bolts behind what I'd been learning.

I went on to Teaching College Psychology, where I got the incredible opportunity to act as an Instructional Assistant to students in an Intro class. Together with the other IAs, we waded our way through the frightening new depths of imparting our knowledge to others. I led my own discussion section where we discussed and explored the material we had talked about in lecture. I encouraged the students to work with the curriculum on many different levels, so as to thoroughly absorb it, and in doing so, I was able to re-cement the knowledge as well.

Now, in my final year, I have embarked on the most rewarding and nerve-wracking journey yet: putting my knowledge to use out in the real world. I have begun an internship with Front Street, Inc, a local program that provides residential care for the mentally ill in the community. I have been given the chance to see the reality of a life in the mental health field, helping individuals to make the best of their difficult situations. Looking into the faces of the clients at these facilities, I can see the names behind the statistics, the humanity inherent-- but often hidden-- in the field. I am given a constant reminder that Psychology extends beyond textbooks and classrooms; it is working towards the daunting goal of providing care and relief for those who suffer mentally.

Post graduation, I am hoping to put my education to work as a Clinical Psychologist, working to both further current research and to help those who need it. I hope for the chance to, every day, have one-on-one conversations with other human beings as, together, we try to figure out what's wrong and what's right with us as people. I hope to get to meet some of the individuals in that nameless crowd I drove past as a child, to gain witness that we are all of us human, mixing our own distinctiveness into the world, making for a terrifying, confusing, and fascinating place to exist.

Sanity's Madness: An Introduction

I am a firm believer in natural selection. Through this logical mechanism, a species can grow and improve, as they develop only those traits and behaviors which help them to a.) not die, and b.) have babies. Thereby, a species can thrive as its weaker links are weeded out. It is for this reason (among others) that I am so utterly mystified by human beings.

Humans do not obey the laws of natural selection—they are able to defy their survival instinct at will. Consider the thrill seekers, jumping off of mountains, out of planes, deliberately putting their lives in jeopardy despite the obvious risk. And for what? An adrenaline rush. Consider those who put dangerous substances into their body for a short term pleasure, numbness, or euphoria. Who, usually well aware of the danger, begin using, no matter the long-term consequences. Consider those who fall into one unhealthy relationship after another, seeking those who may bring them temporary satisfaction or psychological security, at the cost of their safety, freedom, or happiness. Consider those who deliberately end their lives, doing the ultimate in ignoring their inborn survival instinct.

Despite all our purported superiority, we humans seem to fall short on that evolutionary necessity. We are able to flout natural selection and allow our dysfunction to persist in the species, thereby allowing humanity to become increasingly diluted with its own irrationality. So my question is, how on earth are we getting by? How are we surviving our own self-destruction?

Maybe, as a college student, I’ve been exposed to a nonrepresentative sample, but in my experience, people are generally pretty messed up. I believe the individual who is genuinely psychologically healthy is a rare specimen indeed. We all enter the real world laden with years and years of baggage, carrying with us every remotely traumatic experience we ever had to live through. It’s little wonder therapists make bank doing what they do! But the thing to keep in mind is that our issues are what make us interesting. They make us fascinating, freakish creatures of mystery. It is this very freakishness that makes for the best sorts of dialectical exploration. Those late-night conversations in which you may arrive at some personal epiphany about how the world works, or, better, how you work— those can be truly mind-blowing.

Four years into studying psychology has, disappointingly, yielded little of this discussion; it’s usually less a matter of theorizing and more a matter of studying what has already been theorized. For this reason, I’d like this blog to be something of a social experiment: I would like to introduce a topic, give a lengthy spiel on my take on it, and open it up for discussion. I want to be disagreed with. I want to be challenged. I want to engender a deeper understanding in all of us as to what really makes humanity tick. So let’s have a conversation. And maybe we’ll have some fun epiphanies along the way.