Olivia Thompson Capstone Reflective Autobiography Until arriving at Radford, I spent my entire educational journey at catholic private schools. The sociological imagination impressed upon me by C. Wright Mills, was not a part of my perspective. I was not very sheltered socially, but I have realized now, at the culmination of my experiences at Radford, that I was very globally and sociologically naïve. In the beginning of my college career, the first two ideas that seemed important to me were that religion and social media/technology had a huge impact on my life, in different, but both very negative ways. These two ideas were the topics of my first college papers. I had not yet taken a sociology class, and still had only my primary major of Psychology. But looking back, both papers were both sociological in nature. I was a sociologist, before I even knew it. Before I realized what an “institution” was in our lives, I could feel that being raised with a religious education, had tried (but failed) to influence my perspectives and control my type of thinking throughout my entire life. In terms of social media and technology, I could see the nuanced, and not so subtle ways that it controlled everyone’s actions, emotions, and interactions with the world. I felt myself getting angry when I realized that so much of my peers’ actions were ignited by the pressure to update their online presence. I felt I didn’t need this technology, to stay connected to important people, and I didn’t need an online identity as the driving force of my presence in life. I wanted to act freely, and not for the eyes of others. This desire to distance myself from religion and technology, was my first attempts at autonomy, and the first time I felt that I didn’t want to be “brainwashed”. I didn’t know what “autonomy” and “socialization” were at the time, but this new found strength in conviction, is what lead me to the fundamental understanding of the two concepts. I just didn’t have words to define them yet.
During the first four years at Radford, I was dating my girlfriend at the time, Allie. Everything was different then how I had been raised to be, my life was unconventional, non-traditional, and full of “otherness”. I wasn’t bogged down by rules and restrictions anymore, and only had myself and my partner to navigate through. I was happy, and proud that I had been released from the grips of societal constraint for the first time in my life. Although so many remained in the “iron-cage”, an idea popularized by Max Weber, the notions of society that had been instilled in me, were all of the sudden able to be seen as constructed, and reified into societal reality. I could feel myself changing perspectives, semester by semester. It felt very much like what I expect, “becoming enlightened” feels like. This relationship, undoubtedly began my journey into feminism (and eventually post-feminism, when I realized gender didn’t matter at all) Gender became just an indoctrinated set of beliefs instilled into us in a perpetual way throughout our lives. (Roscigno, 2011) As gender was an important concept in my life, women’s studies became more and more interesting to me, and I took on women’s studies as a minor after taking the intro course. The injustice of inequality burned deeply inside my mind, and set a passion on fire that pressured me to help fix things in any way that I could. I started writing papers and creating presentations about the idea of gender. I tried to share these ideas with my classmates and professors, and often was ridiculed by my classmates and almost never agreed with. It certainly made me realize that, although it made so much sense to me, and scholars in my field, the average person was not going to accept these ideas lightly, nor were they going to be open to changing. This taught me to face adversity, to learn when to pick my battles, and that I didn’t want to be like them. I couldn’t understand why people wouldn’t change their perspective, when being impressed with such profound ideas. I came to the conclusion that, (and remember I was only a sophomore at the time), that a lot of my peers, and probably people of older generations, had not yet reflected on their lives. I realized how important it was to look back at your entire journey, and see what has socialized me, and where my ideals came from. I wanted to see how
the TV shows and movies, and music, and education, and friends, and family had taught me “how to be”. It all seemed so natural, until I realized through the intersection of sociology and psychology, how much it had impacted me, and the entire world. These experiences taught me how important it was to keep an ever open mind, and be prepared to change my perspective, when new information came in. This reflection and ability to remain open affected me in a profound way, and gave me the mindset to really appreciate my education, and strive to always learn more. I knew that the only way I could make decisions, was if I was fully informed, with my new mind-set, or else my decisions would not be autonomous, and would be influenced by structures and institutions that I was not aware of. At the time, I was struggling with my disagreement with many of the psychological ideas that were being taught to me in my classes, I was constantly scrutinizing the perspective of categorizing mental illness and treatment methods. I had to distance myself from psychology for a while, while my new beliefs developed so I could be strong enough to not become indoctrinated by a school of thought that I disagreed with. During this time, I took an intro to philosophy class. I had to arrive early at 8 A.M. It would be early and I would be tired, and my professor, Dr. Martin, began to lift the veil off of my tired eyes, day by day, while we learned about people like Immanuel Kant. He showed these amazing photo slide shows, of his travels through the world, with descriptive stories of what it was like in Guatemala, and India, and other countries he had witnessed. I use the word witness, because when I was watching these slide shows, I felt like I was being shown secrets, crimes, and trauma that the world was facing right now, that I never knew existed. I’m not sure why I was able to empathize with the lives of others around the world so much, at this point. But even though I knew about “third-world countries” and some of the problems that these countries face, it didn’t really affect me before college, but now my entire heart was hurting, as I knew that just because you were born somewhere, it would determine your entire life. I would think, “what if I was born in Guatemala, living on the sidewalk, peeing in the
river, what if…”. Although philosophy was enjoyable, and challenging, and eye-opening, I knew I didn’t want to just theorize about the problems, that it seemed so self-serving to only write about the problems and not apply that knowledge to finding solutions. This understanding lead me to finally understand the importance of “sociology”, and eventually lead me to pick it up as a second major. I had heard from a random classmate about something called “scholar-citizen initiative”, and that they were having a student forum, to get the perspectives of students about their program. I went to the forum, and connected instantly with the vision of the program. I knew it was a baby program, a part of Radford’s Quality Enhancement Plan, but I became insanely passionate about the opportunities that it could bring to students lives. I knew that this program would enhance the quality of Radford students and the campus community. I knew that if students could learn to want to bring their knowledge from the classroom, to the real world, as well as learn to reflect on their experiences, that they could feel just as strongly and passionately as me about the importance of knowledge, and civic duty. I got involved with SCI from its earliest stages and many doors were opening for me all at once. I was invited to work for SCI, to sit on the steering committee, to help with student outreach, and frequently express my convictions to a room of faculty. At the time, I was never intimidated, I was just speaking my mind and truths, and faculty responded positively to it. I was supposed to try and recruit other students to join the fellowship, but as faculty were responding more and more positively to me, my peers and classmates were treating me like an outcast. For the first time in my life, I was not accepted by my peers and it created a level of social anxiety in me I had not yet experienced before. Researchers Allen, Chango and Szwedo at UVA, wrote a paper that discussed this very experience that I was going through. Their longitudinal study, aimed to find what attributes would bring about the greatest success in adulthood. It looked at the idea of “social desirability” (or peer likeableness), vs “autonomy” (or independence) and found that having a balance between the two would leave you at the
greatest advantage. I didn’t want to compromise my autonomy, just to be liked by my peers, even though strong social ties are important. At this stage I was in, I was entirely autonomous, but could feel my social desirability going down. But I was successful with faculty, and professors, and I had a loving relationship, so I was not too concerned. I thought I would still be successful, even if my classmates made fun of me for expressing myself so openly. (Allen, Chango, & Szwedo, 2013). SCI brought me to many new experiences through interacting with students, trying to explain the program and its importance, as well as volunteer work with various groups of at risk youth and high school students in the five surrounding counties. I learned about the community I was living in, outside of the campus community, through SCI and my job at a “locals-only” whole-in-the-wall restaurant that a normal RU student would never set foot in. The community became important to me, and my perspective began to constantly shift from macro-level global problems, to micro-level community problems, and down to the even smaller individual psycho-social problems, and how it all was intertwined within itself. Linda George, discusses the idea of macro-and micro linkage, and how even Ritzer claimed the lack of that constant link, was a fundamental problem to sociology. When George is discussing transitions in life, this concept seemed the most important to me. I think it is why I believe so strongly in the link between my psychology, and sociology degrees. I don’t view them as competing anymore, as I once did, and now find the symbiotic relationship between the two. While sometimes, it becomes challenging to organize and create a cohesive thought to explain the “full picture” (of macroand micro) to a peer, I still think it’s important to try and to try to not sacrifice an important understanding. (George, 1993). I have faced many adversities because of the choices I have made, but it all seems like it will be worth it in the end. After my relationship ended, a big component of what made all of my motivation and passion push onward, had come to a halt. Without love, I was only facing adversity. This was most definitely a set-back, but going through different transitions of grief and loss, lead me to find my
convictions again, and remember why I care about the things that I do, even if I don’t have very much support in it, right this second. Part II My Radford University education will be valuable for my future in innumerable ways. My education and experience here has taught me how to work with diverse groups of people, and relate to them even if they are different than me. I have learned that differences are what make everyone beautiful, and that discussion and shared perspectives between diverse groups, is the only way to help. While I do still believe in programs such as SCI, I don’t think it can be properly utilized by students unless they have a fundamental understanding of why they want to learn, and use their knowledge. No one can recreate the experience of an “eye-opening” experience, even if all of the components of there, because often it is working backwards, instead of letting the perspective develop naturally. Everyone’s transition to “enlightenment” is unique, and while a program can help to try and change the culture from the top, I think that sharing perspectives and conversations with diversity, is one of the truest ways to achieve understanding. This has already been a valuable tool for me, and helped me to be recommended by a faculty to another fellowship, called Ask Big Questions, where I was taught to facilitate discussions about important ideas, with diverse groups of people. A second important outcome and valuable tool for my future is the interdisciplinary perspective I have gained about all fields. By connecting multiple schools of thought, into my education, I have learned how people from different backgrounds or education can work cohesively together. This will be important for my future if I want to do important things. Change-making can only happen with a wellrounded team, and being able to see how all the parts of the puzzle can link together, is just as important as each individual part. Looking at life in an interdisciplinary way, allows me to see how biology, sociology, anthropology, physics, psychology, business, art, medicine, etc…are all trying to achieve the same thing, but from a different perspective. I think this perspective gives me a greater
respect for anyone that I meet, because I don’t feel like any one field is “right”, and that they only work in conjunction with each other. The third most important tool from my RU education is my ability to research. It goes without saying that having the ability to research, and theorize, and design papers, will be important. Being able to effectively communicate through writing, with evidence, will allow me to help share ideas and connect people to my theoretical hypotheses about the nature of everything. If I had to do one thing differently, I would have chosen a biology major, with a focus on premed. I’m not sure if my journey would have lead me the same way, or to the same understandings, but with the knowledge I know now, working on helping to improve the lives of people in an osteopathic and holistic way, would have been amazing. I would have preferred to have sociology as my second major to a pre-med major, instead of psychology. But what is also linked into this, is that, to not waste time. When I went through my breakup, I developed a lot of illnesses from stress, a broken heart, and coincidence. This caused me to waste a lot of time, and lose focus for things that are important. Had I not lost focus for so long, perhaps I would have had time to manage my time better and reorganize my education, and change majors. But since it is known that hindsight is 20/20, I guess the biggest lesson from this, is just to be organized, get things done ahead of time, don’t procrastinate, and don’t lose focus. The only way to achieve that is to figure out what motivates you, and remind yourself every day. In the spring semester I will continue to follow my own advice listed above, so as to be able to make sure I can get through with everything that I need to accomplish before I leave Radford.
References Allen, Joseph P., Joanna Chango, and David Szwedo. 2013. “The Adolescent Relational Dialectic And
the Peer Roots of Adult Social Functioning.” Child Dev Child Development 85(1):192–204. Elwell, Frank. 2013. “C. Wright Mills On The Sociological Imagination.” C. Wright Mills On the Sociological Imagination. Retrieved 2015 (http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/theorists/essays/mills3.htm). George, L. K. 1993. “Sociological Perspectives On Life Transitions.” Annual Review of Sociology 353– 73. Vincent, Roscigno. 2011. “Power, Revisted.” Social Forces 90 (2):349–74.