How sociology has changed me

In  sociology on the first day I honestly didn't really know what to expect. All I really knew was that I didn't need to take a final for the class. Also, at the time I was not the most sociological mindful person. However, I feel that I have gained a lot through this class. Unlike my normal classes, I do not feel like I have gained a great deal about an academic subject, but instead I have learned about how the world works and how others perceive information. For example, throughout the course of the movie 'Crash,' (possibly my favorite part of the year since I love that movie) I realized through the characters how I have a starting perception of people before I even talk to them. This can be seen through my recognition of how they are deviant. For example, when I see people who are in wife beaters, I quickly make the assumption that they are part of a gang. However, in the movie, the lock fixer in the wife beater seemed like a really good guy. While I do realize that I may still have this perception, I will now be more likely to give a conscious effort to treating them like everyone else when I meet them. I also realized that the way I dress could give my teachers a specific perception of who I am out of school. Therefore, I think I need to make sure when I get to college that I dress in an appropriate manner so that my professors see me as a studious person and not a complete slacker. In addition, I feel that the lessons about  the importance of beauty for girls was a great learning experience for me. Prior to this class I never really payed attention to how much girls use products to give themselves a deceptive outer appearance. However, I have been paying a lot more attention to this, and I am starting to realize important makeup and physical feature are to girls. One great example of this is in my gym class. In this class, I know 3 sophomores. Out of these three girls, 2 of them have had plastic surgery (one a nose job and the other got her ears tucked back). I personally find it to be ridiculous that these girls feel so awful about their appearance at such a young age that they have to get it changed. I as a boy realize that I have in my opinion large ears but I'm not going to get plastic surgery for it. I think of it as a unique feature that I possess. Therefore, I feel that sociology has probably affected my life more than any academic class ever could. It had a great change on how I perceived the world and the people I meet.

Crash

In class we watched the movie Crash. I had seen the movie once before in my English class but Sal told me to watch it focusing on the importance of race.This made me focus on how many people in the movie based upon their race. For example, the Latino man in the movie was typically stereo typed as a gang member so when he would change peoples lock he was not trusted. Also, when the middle eastern family was in the gun shop they were stereotyped as Arab terrorists despite the fact that they were not Arabic. In my everyday life, I think that race still plays a large role in how people get treated however, I think the way you present yourself also plays a major role in this. For example, many times police will be much less harsh on white children than black children when it comes to dealing with drugs. However, I feel that if these white children were dressed like gang members then they too would receive a harsh punishment.