Marashi, 1

Cameron Marashi
Ms. Hamby
ENGL 1101 Section 19
8 October 2014
How to Understand the Understanding
In the year of 2006-2007, over one and a half million people graduated in college with a
bachelor in Psychology. Understandably, psychology majors still make up a sizable group on
UNCCs campus. Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and its functions,
especially those affecting behavior in a given context. But why do psychology majors harbor
such an intense yearning to understand psychology? Even more compelling, psychology is a
course of study most of us are familiar with. AP Psychology is one of the most commonly taken
college class offered by high schools; so many people have had an experience with psychology,
yet only a handful of these people want to devote their lives to the research. So who are
psychology majors? If you look at them skin deep, they are typically critical women, mostly all
from middle class families, and all with the goal of analyzing the human psyche to look into
what makes a man behave as a man, what makes a person mentally ill, and if possible help
people.
Methodology
I began my research on the twenty-fourth of September. It was a cold and rainy day and I
was in my room interviewing Natalie Schopen. Natalie is a friend of mine who is already very
comfortable with me. I offered her to sit in an extra chair I brought, but she chose to sit on my
bed. She had a very relaxed demeanor, until we began the actual interview. She sat up in my bed

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and crossed her legs while talking about psychology. Her whole behavior became more
professional. I may have noted these details but the information I primarily focused on was her
record account of psychology. I tried to play an active role in our conversations to make sure the
interview would avoid being awkward.
Although I did all I could to not put words in her mouth, the major limitation I faced
while interviewing Natalie was that she has been a good friend for a long time, so there is a
chance she spiced what she responded with up so I had something to write about. I faced
Limitations with Natalie because she is only a first year Psychology student she may not have
been as well versed of knowledgeable than if I were to interview a senior who majors in
psychology. I also faced a limitation on bias Natalie is my friend there is a chance she made the
psychology department more interesting on my behalf.
Next, I read some texts from a popular psychology magazine, Psychology Today, where I
conducted my analysis on the article, New Insights into the Genetics of Schizophrenia. I made
many of my observations for this part of my research based off of the website on the home page,
while my analysis will come from the text. But from what I can observe from the home page is
that psychologists discuss many aspects of life and give them their own categories. The majority
of the titles that showed this were more informal sites, but looking further, there were some
advanced psychology topics. I may be limited to what I can understand about psychology
students when I have no background in psychology making it difficult for me to fully understand
what the article might be saying.
I concluded my research by attending a meeting of the Psychology Student Coalition,
where I sat in and observed the clubs interactions and operations as if I was a member. I took

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quick notes of speakers and obvious leaders within the groups and even looked for more subtle
things such as sub groups within the club. The Psychology Student Coalition club meetings
begin at 5 pm in Colvard building on Tuesdays; these meetings usually begin with the Club
president addressing previous meetings while a paper goes around the room for students to sign
in. The room is obviously divided among the more experienced upper classmen members and the
newer students, with most of the students being psychology majors. Once sign in was completed,
members where permitted to eat the food that was brought once everyone had received there
food and sat the meeting began.
Although I may have been acting as if I was a member, I kept my interactions with others
to a minimum, only trying to be as close as possible without making my presence observable.
My presence may have made students uncomfortable with speaking and no matter how well I
tried to remain unnoticed; I still possibly may have limited the amount of students that spoke.
Other limitations occurred when half way through the club meeting, I had to leave to use the
restroom, thus hindering the amount of information I could obtain from this club meeting.
Analysis
Natalie is a first year psychology major who is an avid member of the Psychology
Student Coalition. My initial observation was that Natalie spent much of her time trying to
compose the perfect sentences to answer my questions. There was never a moment in my
conversation with her where I received a one word answer, when asking her about what the ideal
psychology student was. She seemed that she always needed to clarify herself. She had
responded to my question with, The ideal psychology student is a critically thinking student
who, although not open to believe any information at face value, is still open to new ideas and

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philosophies, focusing on others behaviors and understanding mental processes more than their
own. Once Natalie began talking, her body language also began to change. Her once slouched
posture straightened and she even crossed her legs, her fidgety hands now rested gently infront of
her. Natalies transition from informal to sudden professional shows that psychology students
consider their own subject matter a very academic and professional field of learning. This was
later affirmed in the interview Natalie stated, Its really important to know the terms in
psychology, most of psychology is learning the vocabulary and how to apply them, learning
them is important but applying the words into what you research is probably considerably the
most important. From what I could gather the psychology discourse community all use this very
sophisticated lexis words from psychoanalyses and Freudian, words so important that students
couldnt even get there degrees without knowing. Psychology students consider their majors as a
very serious course of learning, a professional community dedicated and unwilling to accept
anyone deemed as Subpar into their rankings.
While analyzing Psychology Todays, New Insights into the Genetics of Schizophrenia,
One of the most interesting things that I noticed right away was that this article wasnt a public
service announcement and it wasnt about a cure for schizophrenia. This article was not meant to
explain the symptoms of schizophrenia and the warning signs of those at risk, but rather, this
article was written to explain what researchers found about the genetics of schizophrenia. The
picture that was posted with the article wasnt supposed to cause the reader to evoke an
emotional reaction; it was just a picture of DNA that highlighted the genes that are attributed
with schizophrenia. The nonchalant feelings towards this debilitating mental illness continue
when the article starts with Lets dive in, followed by a blunt description of what

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schizophrenia is. This was clearly written for an audience who has had prior knowledge with
schizophrenia because it jumped right into the cold hard facts. While some articles on the
website are for those who are less serious about psychology, there is very serious scientific
material that this magazine contains such as, How the Brain Processes and Keeps up with
Joneses and A Strange Place: Dissecting the Neuroscience Nobel Prize. This is the type of
magazine psychology students read for fun to gain interesting bits of information or sometimes a
psychology student will read this magazine to really analyze it and understand the concepts this
magazine will put out for them. These students are not as interested in curing or alleviating
mental problems, instead their real interest lies in understanding these problems. Granted, they
do go on to discuss how this research may help find a cure. The job of this article was to help all
those who are interested in schizophrenia look at what eight genes produce higher risks of the
disorder. This shows that psychology students all share a common goal and understand mental
processes and diseases as the top priority, more so than treating the problem.
In the club meeting I attended there was a guest speaker; she was an UNCC graduate who
majored in psychology and was now working in the career center. She was giving a presentation
on how to make a good resume. While giving this lecture it became increasingly apparent how
important research was for anyone who wanted to pursue a career in psychology. Many of the
upper classmen even took notes when the speaker went into detail about grad school admissions.
It was easier to tell the more serious students from the more casual students as they sat
attentively and took notes close to the speaker. These same students are the ones who end up
running the conversations and input there opinions into the conversation. It correlates to there
being a hierarchy and trend that the more passionate the psych student is, the more highly their

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opinion is regarded. Almost all these students that carried the club meetings all wanted to go to
graduate school. This shows that the only students who can truly excel in the psychology
department are the ones who are the most passionate about psychology. Without passion for
psychology one could never go far.
Psychology is an academic field of study where the students main priority is to
understand the brain and mental processes, including mental illnesses and if possible treatment to
these problems. Psychology students are involved in a community where the goals are to get a
degree in psychology and pursue research to continue their studies on the human mind. While
this field of learning is available for anyone to join if taken seriously, only the select few who are
truly passionate about learning about understanding psychology will be able to pull ahead of the
rest and achieve greatness.
Studying psychology majors gave me an understanding of their subject matter and how
serious and important it is to them, meticulously conducting research, crunching the gathered
data, then finding correlation within this data all so they can take a step closer to unlocking the
secrets workings of the mind. Not all possess the skills and interests of this intensively critical
group, but those that do typically share much in common with one another, all very open minded
individuals eager to learn about one another even ready to even study one another. From
conducting this research about psychology majors I have built my understanding of the
importance of those that dedicate their time and effort into the field as they work to progress the
scientific research of the human mind.

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"New Insights into the Genetics of Schizophrenia." Psychology Today: Health, Help,
Happiness + Find a Therapist. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2014.