Last Day of the First Sem: Learnings from the Semester that Flew By


3 months and 21 days. That was the duration of my first semester in Christ. It was a roller coaster, with all its ups and downs, but fortunately, no head-spinning and throwing up took place. As I realized that this semester was done, I thought of listing the many things that this institution, my course, my professors, and my class taught me. 

  1. The very, very vast difference between Engineering and Psychology. The transformation from learning about the working of a circuit, to learning about how cognition, behavior, and emotion, affect the human being. (special mention: the unconscious).
  2. The difference between sitting in an undergraduate and a postgraduate class. 
  3. Making people understand that learning psychology doesn’t translate to “Hey, I can read your mind.”
  4. The significance of Sigmund Freud.
  5. ETHICS. APA and ACA Code of Ethics is the guiding force. Every time one feels that one is an ethical issues expert, a new case is thrown in one’s face to help understand otherwise.
  6. Finally able to define what one feels with each and every goodbye: Separation Anxiety (no, not the technical definition).
  7.  Scoring high on the above-mentioned term due to the end of the semester.
  8. From feeling completely lost, to absolutely falling in love with Lifespan Psychology, along with the realization of not wanting to miss even one class (major factor: The “I’m only here to facilitate your learning” professor).
  9. Baby Shark and feeling like giants in front of 40 kindergartners.
  10. Professional Development and the joy of half-day.
  11. The feeling of giving back to the community, all thanks to community service.
  12. From feeling a little lost on the first day, to finding the right amount of Goodness of Fit (nope, not the technical definition).
  13. From getting overwhelmed by research, to writing a “research proposal” in two days. 
  14. Being part of so many different groups for each CIA, that you often forget who are your group members.
  15. Having professors across the continuum, ranging from “If you make a mistake while writing a name of a stage, I’m not going to cut marks for that. As long as you are able to explain properly, it’s enough”, to “You know how liberal I was in correcting your CIAs. End-sems will not be like that.”
  16. Methods to arrive in time for a 9 am class.
  • Leaving PG at 8:20 am in order to catch the lift to the 7th floor. 
  • Feeling that taking the stairs instead would serve two purposes; one, provide the much    needed exercise, and two, allow me to leave my PG at 8:40 am. 
  • Realizing that climbing 7 floors and arriving in class, sweating and panting, was not worth it. The lift system is one’s best friend.
    17.  Knowing who will be late to a first-hour class and requesting the professor to be kind enough to give them                              attendance.


Looking back on this semester, I don’t think I could have asked for a more kickass way to begin something new in my life, and I’m so grateful for it. 




Location: Hosur Main Road, Bhavani Nagar, S.G. Palya, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560029, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Father, My Strength :)

Most people have one person in their life whom they look up to. That one person who makes them believe in themselves. That one person who tells them to never lose hope.   For me, that person is my father. To me, Appa was one of a kind. One year before I was born, he was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), which means that his body’s immune system started attacking his joints, thereby causing inflammation. For Appa, it had affected six of his joints; knees, elbows and wrists. He also had a permanent bend in his knees. I don’t remember those initial years much but I do remember that he had undergone some Ayurvedic treatment. I remember sitting and watching as he used to apply oil on his limbs. Even now, if I come across those vapours, it takes me back to my childhood. As I grew older, I got to know from Amma that things were not like how they were then. There was a period, in the beginning, where Appa was on a wheelchair and had to learn to start walking again....
Read more

Lived Experiences

Image
       As a child, we learn and internalize many things that are told to us. We are encouraged to study, encouraged to be on our best behaviour, encouraged to obey and respect older people. Most of the time, a child is perceived to be "good", "naughty", or "bad" based on these factors. So naturally, a child internalizes these statements. "You're such a bad boy. You don't want to study and just want to be lazy.", "Why can't you listen to your teachers? You simply want to give us trouble.", "You did so well in your test. We are so happy." and the likes. If you notice, most of these statements are around the academic performance of the child. At an early age, the child develops an understanding that their self-worth will be maximum when their academic performance is high. This is not done consciously, but over time, as the child grows up and sees that each time they score fewer marks, the people in their environment a...
Read more

Week 4 with Compassionate Clowns

Image
I always thought of a paediatric ward as a place with only babies, toddlers, and children up to 10 years. It didn’t occur to me that there will be children up to 17 years of age in that ward. That soon changed the first time I went to the paediatric ward at St. John’s, where I spoke to a 17-year-old boy.  This time, I spoke to a 14-year-old girl. She was such a lively and happy girl that she raised the spirits of anyone who talked to her. She was in the hospital for dengue, and thus had missed school for a couple of weeks. She was one of the few children I’ve met, who was waiting to go back to school. English and Mathematics were her favourite subjects, so we started discussing how easy it was to study for an English exam as it didn’t involve any studying. We also bonded over our mutual love of Mathematics and discussed a bit about Highest Common Factor (HCF) and Least Common Multiple (LCM). I was grumbling saying how much I missed learning Mathematics, especially since my cu...
Read more