Self-Assessment Essay
Reflecting on the Spring Semester, there has been a lot that has happened throughout these four months, more notably the transition to online learning and the Covid-19 outbreak. Regardless, I still remember the classroom that we used to be in for Social Science and the many different projects that we did to understand what it meant to be a Social Scientist. From the first project of the Peer Interview to the final Field Sites essay, there was a lot of progression and personal growth that I felt I obtained in the class regarding mastering the skills of a social scientist.
One skill that was very important in this class was observation. There is a lot of information that a social scientist must pick up on when they observe individuals and the Peer Interview was my first real glimpse into that life. When I peer interviewed my partner, I had to take into consideration every word he was saying by recording it, while simultaneously paying attention to his body language, changes in his voice tone, the order in which he said some words, and more. I wasn’t completely ready to observe and record my partner at this time because I didn’t know what to expect. Initially, I didn’t know how I was going to write the interview but in class we peer interviewed with two different individuals and helped me figure out how to structure and complete my essay. Also, by helping them with their essay, I was able to learn how to properly distinguish my fluff information in the paper with the better parts of it so that my Peer Interview essay had a more proper structure. I then interview John for the transcultural interview. When doing this interview, there were some drawbacks because we used Discord, a chatting app that didn’t have a webcam, so I couldn’t observe his body language. I learned in this course that you had to adapt to unexpected changes, so I tried to make up for his loss of visual by paying extra attention to his voice and patterns of speaking. I learned that optimally, the best scenario for an interview as a social scientist is face to face but if that isn’t available, you have to adapt to the current situation. Next time, I would try to replicate a face to face interview if possible.
One assignment that encapsulates my progression as a writer since entering this class was the CCNY class observation essay. In this observation, I went to a Neurology class and I observed what the students were doing. Anytime a specific student was moving, I was writing down what I saw them do and I tried to write information about the environment. For example, I took into consideration what time of day it was, approximately how many students were there and how the class was being taught. In this assignment in particular, I tried to give as much information to the audience, which was new and unique for me because I tried to structure my essay in a way where it was entertaining and informative of my observations. By implementing this new writing strategy, it felt like I brought life into my paper.
The field Sites essay was one wild ride because of the outcome that it led to. Initially when I did my field sites essay, I was confused as to what online community I wanted to observe and what my research question was going to be. Ultimately after much internal conflict, I chose my topic of twitch streamers and mental health and if it were worth it to stream video games if It could have led one to suffer mentally. As I was writing my paper, I had a stance from the moment that I chose the topic initially. However, as I did more research, my opinion was swayed because it had me think a lot about the stance that I initially thought of. I initially thought of the bad of social media influence and the jeopardy that one can face when they are the victim of the internet. The conversation that Dr.Lupo had with that one individual in his stream had me question my initial viewpoint and if I asked Dr.Lupo my question, he would’ve said that he would continue to stream despite the drawbacks and social hate that can arise from it. Ultimately, the outcome of this essay taught me a lot. When observing specific online communities, there are typically two sides of an argument and community, but you chose which side to be on.
All these assignments taught me the difficulties that can arise from being a social scientist. If anything, this course has taught me to appreciate the work that these people do because there is a lot of observation that takes place to try and bring some positive contributions to society. This course sharpened my observation skills and a major takeaway I got was how to use that skill to get the reader immersed into my writing. As crazy as 2020 got with the covid situation, the course taught me how to improve my skills as a writer and how to adapt to situations when they are least expected.
Meaningful Assignment
The assignment that I felt was the most meaningful for me during the course was the Transcultural Interview. It was an assignment that we did for the class before covid took the whole world by storm and it was one of the last moments of the spring semester that represented any type of our “normal” life as college students.
The topic I also chose was about music and I interviewed my friend John, who had a different take on music than I had. Before the interview, whenever I would think about what genre of music a certain individual likes, I would normally guess it and it would be true. I would judge their taste in music based on their personality and the interactions that I had with them. Charles plays the piano and guitar, so I expected him to like rock music or some pop music. To my surprise, he enjoys classical music the most. I didn’t really meet individuals with this taste in music, so it was an eye opener indeed, in that there is a lot that goes behind a certain individual’s preference in music.
This assignment was also the first one that gave me an insight as to what Social Scientists do. Prior to the course, I didn’t know what the role of social scientists were but only knew that they had to observe individuals. Even though I had the interview with my friend over discord, an online app for chatting, I tried to catch on how he was speaking, such as the tone of his voice, how fast he spoke, and whether he stuttered or not. Reflecting on the whole pandemic now, the job of a social scientist has become more important than ever because online communication is the only optimal form of communication with other people right now. Social Scientists can be studying the correlation between people’s mental health as we transitioned from “normal” lives to the new world that covid has created. The class has certainly created a new appreciation for social scientists for me and how they are trying to make society better by observing these changes and trying to create change for the good in the future.
