2017 Boland Undergraduate Research Symposium

Well, it is second semester of freshman year, and I'm already starting to think about my senior thesis...Happens I guess. I know I'm not the only freshman pondering research topics and mentors and such. One of the best learning experiences to help me know what I'm getting myself into regarding my thesis was the 2017 Boland Undergraduate Research Symposium. Actually seeing people present their theses was fantastic. It showed me how many options I really have. The diversity and array of psych theses showed me that there are a multitude of directions I can head in for my thesis while still staying within my major. I even started thinking about specific research opportunities regarding stigma because I was inspired by numerous speakers.

The following picture is just for Daniel Hedden--Collo professor--who you can see in the background behind Kaitlyn McMinn.

 

Nanoscience=Illuminati

On March 28th, I attended a presentation by Caroline Drury, a UHS sophomore about Culture and Health, one of the minors at ETSU. There, she detailed what it's like to minor in culture and health and how it is extremely interesting and also beneficial, especially for those hoping to go to med school. Though the content of this discussion was helpful, this minor does not seem to be something I want to pursue. And honestly, everyone at this discussion seemed to be going to support Caroline and get credit for Collo, so after we talked about culture and health, we discussed something that was rather intriguing: why nanoscience=Illuminati. Apparently, Caroline made a presentation years ago that detailed why those two seemingly disconnected ideas are actually synonymous. We all got a good laugh out of hearing this rationale, and it truly brightened my day. While at this presentation, I even learned that if you can make anything into a six--especially a series of three of them--then that's really the Illuminati.

Diversity Educators Privilege Discussion

The other night, March 29th, I had the pleasure of attending one of the diversity educators meetings. At this meeting, I felt very welcomed by everyone attending, and there was food, which is always a plus.  At this meeting, we all participated in an interactive game where everyone was assigned a card from a regular deck of playing cards. Each card represented a social class where aces were at the bottom of the social hierarchy and kings were at the top. There were subcategories where the lower class consisted of cards like 2-4, middle class was 6's and 7's, and the upper class was face cards. Everyone could see what card you were, but you had no knowledge of what was on your card. We all then interacted, treating each other in a manner that would reflect their status. So, kings were obviously treated fantastically--like royalty--while aces were treated like scum. Once the activity was finished, everyone guessed what category they fell into based on how they were treated by others. 

Now this exercise caused people to behave in a exaggerated way in order to exemplify prejudices, but a point was still clearly made. Many people in society are treated differently based on a single attribute. Additionally, many people are mistreated because of things they have no control over. While this exercise may not have captured the more subtle ways people portray their racism, sexism, and other prejudices, it did still show a variety of ways people are discriminated against. Lower class cards were ignored, ostracized, and even openly ridiculed. Something as simple as someone's tone of speech during this exercise was very indicative of what kind of people they were talking to: you could clearly hear the disdain regarding aces and the respect directed toward kings. 

During this exercise, I was a jack, so I was treated quite well, but it was honestly quite difficult to watch others being mistreated because of a randomly assigned card. This card did not reflect their personal character, but rather, it labelled and defined them simply because the game dictated it to be so. The blatant prejudice in this game echoes that found in American society, which is honestly quite sad. Things like this remind me of why we as a society need to rally together and eradicate such prejudices. People should be judged on their character, not on attributes like nationality, sexuality, religion, etc.