Connected

Questions

What struck me?

What did I learn this week? About myself? About others?

How can I apply this learning in my life?

Entry #1

It was a pleasant day, cloudy but not raining. It made it easier to head to our first lesson on Social Science that 23rd of January. My Biology blockmates had decided to sit nearer to the front after learning slightly about the dynamics of the class, so we could listen and learn from the teacher better. The bell rang and the class opened up with a question:

What are the questions you have about the self?

Ma’am Therese Ocampo

We were instructed to write our question(s) on a piece of paper then paste our paper on the board. It took a moment before people started crowding around the board and I waited until most of the people were done. My question is as follows:

Why do we have existential crisis?

My question, slightly wrong grammar, but it gets the message across.

Those questions were asked so we could know if we’ll ever get them answered in SocSc. I liked how we could see how much we were connected in terms of our questions. There were many people questioning about their existence like “Who am I?” or even what exactly they are supposed to do? There were a handful of humorous ones like “Will I pass this semester?” and also rhetorical ones asking whether you exist for others or do others exist for you. Ma’am Ocampo went through each one of the questions, most of them being answerable later on in this class we were taking.

The lesson proper began with Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Theory regarding Systems Perspectives. He developed the Process-Person-Context-Time model over his lifetime. This concept is used to determine the correlations between different sets of environment and people and how they could affect an individual. Aside from the model, we also learned about the different ecological systems surrounding the “self”. Bronfenbrenner’s theory gives names to concepts we can understand but otherwise would have not thought about.

I enjoyed the activity the most out of the whole session. I knew my blockmates, but not the majority of my other classmates. It was intriguing to see our own take on what we ask about ourselves. From this, I have somewhat found a connection with other students despite being in completely different courses. Although I probably would not be blurting out “What is the meaning of life?” in everyday conversation, this class has allowed me to get some insight on what people may be worried about. In future interactions with my classmates, I hope that this activity will be a jumping point where we can make good connections.