All throughout my four years at Penn State I have heard friends, associates, classmates and sometimes even TA’s talk about Sam Richard’s Sociology 119 course as the best course one will ever take in his Penn State career. I heard so many good things about it and tried my best each semester to get in the course. I was unlucky every time until my senior year, fall semester.
Coming into this class, I didn’t know what to expect because everyone that I talked to that took the class all had different opinions and feedbacks about Sam’s teaching style. We touch on so many taboos, and touchy subjects of the way society is. Sam made us very uncomfortable as a group and individually as he talked about different sociological topics. He did this in a good way because on the first day of class he expressed to his class that we are going to be talking about different issues that will make us very uncomfortable, but it is something that our society needs to know because we don’t talk about it at all.
Coming into this class, I learned a lot about different ethnicity and race that I didn’t know before taking this course. I have learned to keep an open mind of everyone’s opinions regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, gender, sex, socioeconomic status, or religious affiliation. I have learned a valuable lesson that I don’t think I would have learned had I not taken soc 119 with Sam Richards.
I have learned to give people the benefit of the doubt and this learned gesture has been facilitated in our weekly group discussions. Sam’s lecture class is great and gives everyone a chance to listen to his ideas and stands on society’s issues, however, the group discussion gives everyone a chance to voice out his/her opinions within a smaller group of about 15 students instead of a classroom with over 700 students. This weekly discussion gives everyone a fair chance to talk about what they agreed and disagreed with during Sam’s lectures. It is a comfortable atmosphere where people of different backgrounds and experiences share their opinions and personal stories. Depending on the subject at hand, these weekly discussion groups portray different emotions depending on which subject the TA’s decide to throw on the table for the students.
Overall, I have learned many valuable things from taking Sam’s soc 119 course. One thing that I can take away from this class is to never judge a book by its cover. I have learned to see other sides of an individual’s life. I have learned to accept others for whom they are and not disregard one’s religious view, socioeconomic status, sex, race, and gender just because he/she is different from me or because his/her way of living is something that I am not use to.

I found Thursday’s lecture very interesting even though I knew some of the facts that both Sam and his wife were stating from prior courses and research. Everything seemed redundant and expected, however I was shocked that Sam stated that women dress based on the male perspective either to attract attention from men or to deflect the attention away that they get from men. I was surprised at this statement because I never thought that either way in this society; we women are unconsciously catering to the “male gaze”
When I was in high school I never thought about dressing to attract the male’s gaze, I dressed more to fit in with the other girls. I guess having uniforms didn’t make things easier because I wanted to look like them. During my years in high school we didn’t dress so provocatively. We were more focused on who had the latest name brand sneakers, pants, collard shirts, etc.
After coming to college I realized that I was more focused on adjusting to the academics of the college life than my personal appearance. The transition from high school to college was very drastic in that I paid less attention to the way I looked and focused more on my studies. During my first three years of college I wore baggy clothing such as Penn State gear (sweats and t-shirt) almost everywhere I went.
It wasn’t until my last year that I started catering to my appearance. I guess this is due to me holding an important position in an organization. It is also due to the fact that my internship requires me to dress business casual. Since gaining this internship, I find myself dressing more conservative and businesslike.
My everyday wardrobe consists of khaki, black, or dark blue trousers, a solid color blouse, and a lot of cardigans. On days when I am not in business casual clothing, I wear dark washed jeans with a nice long sleeved blouse. Sometimes when I really feel like getting dressed up to brighten up my day I would wear a skirt with colorful tights, flats and a cardigan or blouse.
I don’t think I attract the wrong kind of men by the way that I dress. I am very driven and determined to make something of myself, and I feel as though this shows in the way that I dress. I think that I attract men who are just like me in that they are striving to be successful in life. I also think that I attract older men who are more mature. This is because I dress more in a respectable manner. I am not one to dress skimpy even during Friday and Saturday nights when I go out with my friends. Even though I am still trying to attract the opposite sex’s attention, I like to think that I do it in a well-respected manner where even my family would be proud.

Tuesdays lecture was very interesting and eye opening. I never knew that there were stages to classifying, identifying, and accepting one’s race and others. For the first seven years of my life I grew up in Sierra Leone and The Gambia, which are countries in West Africa. Race was not an issue at all during these years of my life because everyone looked exactly like me. I was aware that there were other races in the world and in these countries, but as a child, race wasn’t the thing that I thought about ever. I was more focused on being a child and playing childhood games with my friends such as hop scotch, tag, hide and seek, and many more. During these years, I was in the first stage of racial identification where I had very little thought or none about race and cultural differences.
It wasn’t until I got to the United States at the age of eight that I realized that people of the same race hung out with each other. For example, while in elementary school, I realized that I gravitated more towards people who were like me in skin color and other similarities, and also realized that people of a different race other than mine stuck together. For example, I saw that Indians, Caucasians, and Asians hung out together. This is when I realized that there was an “us” and a “them”.
Even though I am African, many who don’t personally know me and see me will assume and classify me as either African American or Black. This followed me all throughout middle school and high school. During these years I struggled very much with my own race because I was always surrounded by Caucasians. I went to school and grew up in an area were the majority were whites, and at that time I thought that being white was better because there were so many of them, and they always seemed to have privileges that other races didn’t have. I began to slowly move from stage 2 to stage 3 of racial identity development.
When I moved to college, I started exploring my heritage and actually started embracing the fact that I was African. This wasn’t the case when I was in elementary, middle, and high school because my classmates associated bad things with being African. Due to this, I didn’t embrace my culture, but coming to college and joining the African Students Association made me embrace who I am. Even though I am African, I still battle with the fact that my own people (Blacks) are not taking the advantages given to them to make something of themselves. For example, whenever I go home (Philadelphia area) I am constantly reminded that Blacks are at the bottom of the social ladder, and this motivates me to try best to rise above this stigma. At this point in my life I consider myself to be in Stage 5. Even though I go to a majority white university, I still have meaningful friendships with people of other races. I don’t look at others and judge them based on their race; rather I try to form meaningful relationship with others who have similar personalities as myself.

My mother always told me that many people feel threatened by things that they don’t understand. Society has always found a way to explain something that they don’t understand. This is just part of us being humans. We feel very threatened by things that we don’t know, and that are out of our control, that we try our best to control it by putting a label on it. We as humans, and as what society has taught us, don’t like to be in the dark about things. We like to be able to explain things and put those things in order, and for some reason it makes us feel better. Our society has brainwashed us to think that things that are unexplainable is a threat to others and ourselves. This is the main reason why people are comfortable with stating that gay people choose to be gay.
People have a hard time understanding that someone is born gay because that is not the norm in our society. Usually when a child is born, he/she is the most innocent creature in the world without flaws. For a person to believe that this child was born with a flaw (being gay) is hard for that person to wrap his/her mind around that concept. Since I could remember, homosexuality has been a universal issue and taboo that many think exist but don’t speak about. Some of these anti-homosexuals just don’t understand the ways and mindset of people who are different from them only in one way, which is that they are attracted to the same sex.
I didn’t know anything about homosexuality until I got to college. I mean yes I knew what it meant and knew some of my high school classmates came out during those times, but I wasn’t really exposed to it in school (where I spend the majority of my time) nor at home. It wasn’t until I got to college that I started learning about it in my classes and started seeing it in public. The way our society is set up, if something becomes seen more often and often, that thing becomes a norm in our society. For example, during the 1950s the majority of women never wore pants, but as the decades went by, one started seeing women wear more and more pants, and now it has become the norm in our society (mostly in the United States society).
I admit that I was one of those people that thought homosexuality was a choice because I didn’t quite understand it and didn’t understand how people could live like this when it wasn’t the “norm” in our society. I was very ignorant into thinking that people chose this, when they are constantly being treated unfairly and ostracized from society. After taking a sexuality and gender course, I learned that homosexuality is NOT a choice, but someone is born with the feeling. If something like this were a choice, many wouldn’t choose it because they are constantly stigmatized into something negative and are constantly being treated poorly based on their sexual orientation. No person wants to feel that way and it is sad that others treat him or her in a manner that dehumanizes them because they don’t understand.

When Sam talked about the issue of rape, pregnancy, and abortion in class on Thursday it made me think a lot about the women and girls that this happens to. The issue of rape is a controversial topic in society that it is not frequently talked about or even openly discussed. I feel as though even though our society is becoming more modern, our ways are still set as though we are living in the 1950’s. For example, even in the work place, some women don’t get the opportunity to climb up the success ladder because many feel as though they are either too weak, not capable enough, or still stuck in the 1950’s mindset; where women were the caretaker and whose only job and requirement was to take care of the household and everyone in that household (including the children and her husband).
Even to this day others (meaning men and those whose mindset are stuck in the 50’s) feel the need to have an input in a woman’s life. For example with the whole rape/pregnancy/abortion controversy many conservative as well as liberal people feel as though if a woman was put in that situation they have the right to have a say in what happens in that woman’s life. I do not agree with this at all. As far as I am concern, I am more of a pro-choice person when it comes to pregnancy and abortion especially if the woman/girl was raped.
Rape is the most despicable thing that a person can do to another human being. It bothers me to think that someone will take full control of another person because he wants to feel in control and powerful of another. It makes me sick to my stomach that some are capable of such abominable acts. With all of this happening, some expect to have a say in someone else’s life when they can’t even fully accept what has happened to them. I think that this is very unfair. Given the fact that America is one country where people have a say in their lives (given the constitution), no one should even feel the need to have an input in another person’s life and decisions.
I understand the fact that when a woman chooses to abort her child, it will affect her for a long as she is alive (mentally and emotionally), and that it isn’t that innocent child’s fault that its mother was put into a situation as horrible as forceful intercourse, but if a mother is not ready to deal with a situation like that, who am I to have a say in what she does with her body and life? I feel as though if a person hasn’t gone through an emotional ordeal such as rape, he/she shouldn’t have a say in what someone else’s life that is going through the same situation.

When I saw the first guy with the locks, my initial thought was that he looks like he grew up in urban cities. He basically fit the stereotypes of a young man living in the Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit area. He seems as though he grew up in the hood and has seen many misfortunates in his life. He also looks like a high school dropout who isn’t doing anything with his life.
The second contestant looks somewhat like the first in that they both have locks as well as big headphones on. He looks like one of those individuals that pretended to be something that they weren’t. For example, his overall appearance looks as if he dressed the way he did to fit in when he was younger, possibly trying to fit in with the crowd in high school. He also looks scraggly and unkempt. He has hood tendencies, but is also trying to be different. He also looks like he listens to a variety of music from his headphones.
The third person looks like a sweet hometown girl. The way that she presents herself seems as if she cares more about what people think than what she thinks. She looks like she values others opinions about her. She seems as though she is putting up this façade of being sweet and wholesome. Possibly deep down she
The fourth person seems shy and reserve. He looks like a “band-geek”, but also looks like a loner. He seems as though he experimented with drugs when he was younger and hung with the wrong and got caught up.
The guy in the red seems like a straight up thug. He like the other black guys and fits the stereotype of a black male looking like a “gangster” He looks like he is trying to mask his true identity and feelings by dressing up like a person from the hood. He also seems as if he has grew up in a torn horn home and has seen a lot in his life.
The black guy in the black shirt looks like he is trying to portray a “hard core” persona. At the same time, he looks as if he is more of an “Afrocentric” person. He looks like he loves soul music and anything that lets him express himself. He looks like he is comfortable in his own skin and likes the person that he is and has become. He also looks like he cherishes family. He looks like a family man and looks like he’s been taking care of his family ever since he could remember.
The last person looks like a well-educated person. She looks very well put together and organized on the outside and inside. She looks very happy and giddy, and looks approachable.
Although these are opinions that I have to give, I have been taught since childhood to never judge a person based on what you see on the outside. We as individuals and humans are always judging others based on what society considers the “norm”. Our nature and tendencies are that we judge others that we don’t personally know to explain why they are the way they are. We do this because we are trying to make sense of the situation. As a human race, we don’t like to be kept in the dark about anything, and society has raised us to always have an answer for anything questionable.

After watching the exercise on who’s entitled to the land that we live on today, I was shocked that the majority of my classmates didn’t fell as though people were entitled to the land that was stolen from them. Maybe I believe in fairness, but I was taken back that many didn’t feel as though the indigenous people were entitled to their land after being taken from them.
Then when Sam started talking about fairness and how this land was taken forcefully from the Native Americans, it got others to start thinking. Then, we voted again. This time, many changed their minds. As he started talking more about the unfairness of Native Americans, we slowly started changing our views.
I feel as though Native Americans have every right to take back their land because it was rightfully theirs from the beginning. On top of that, we took their land and didn’t bother to give them any room to work with as far as living space is concerned. Especially given the fact that they refuse to assimilate to American views and culture. They were and are forced to stay in these deserted reservations as punishment for us taking their land.
It is like the class system that Sam was describing in class earlier. These people were basically uprooted from their home and forced to migrate to a new place that they have never been. From then, they weren’t given any chances to make money or work in any type of way where they can climb up the ladder, which forced them to became stagnant. From the beginning of time, they had no choice of bettering themselves.
I really feel as though they have a right to at least claim some of the land that was taken away from them. It is like someone stealing your car that you have worked and saved to buy. Are you going to just sit or stand there and let someone claim your car without a fight? Of course not. This is exactly what we expected the Native Americans to do, but they didn’t. They were the victims because the White people had other advantages over them (e.g. guns). They didn’t fight back because they weren’t nor are they vicious/ruthless people.
Even to this day, they have been shoved to the bottom of the ladder and still can’t rise. After seeing the video of how Native Americans struggle, it made me sad because they were the first ethnic group in America with a rich culture, but today they are the poorest (in wealth) group. They practically live like slaves. It actually reminds me of slavery because they are confined to live in unhealthy conditions and cannot better their lives because they are kept at a lower class.

I have always thought that the experiences that shaped our lives were due to determinism and a small portion of free will until today’s class. For example, when I was between the ages of 2-7, I lived in The Gambia, West Africa with my aunt and my brother. I always thought that I was going to be living in the Gambia my entire life; I thought that this was a set decision in my life. However, my mother was always fighting to get my brother and I to the United States. If it weren’t for the free will of my sibling and I as well as my mother to bring us to the United States, we probably wouldn’t have been here today. My brother and I tried our best to do well in school in order to get a good education. We strengthen our minds by reading up on the American ways and culture to familiarize ourselves with it. The moment that my mom got the good news saying that it was okay to come to the United States, we did.
When we came here, it was hard to adjust to the culture, environment, people, and basically everything else, because it was completely different from what we were use to. However, reading up on the culture and other minor steps that we took while trying to familiarize ourselves with America helped a great deal. We started off at the bottom, but worked our way up due to free will and determinism.
I feel as though Tammy’s situation is like some foreigners where they feel as though that there is no way out in the life that they already have. Many foreigners think that they cannot get out of the situations that they were born into because they feel as though their lives are pre-determined for them already. This concept is partly true, but I believe that free will has everything to do with how someone’s life turns out.
Many people in this world and in this country think that their lives are already determined for them, and that there is nothing that they could do to change it. I don’t agree nor do I believe in this at all. This is the reason why some people don’t feel the need to take responsibility of their actions and work towards their goals. Tammy is the same way, she feels as though her life is already predetermined for her, so she doesn’t make an effort to get out of the situation that she is in. She feels as though she can’t rise to a higher status so she accepts the fact that she is and will forever be at the “bottom of the food chain”.
I feel as though others need to know that their lives are not already predetermined for them. Yes, there are factors that affect their lives, and sometimes there is noting that one could do about it, however it is up to that person to decide what is best for his/her future. One has the right and power to decide his/her future.

I feel as though some people don’t like to vocalize their socioeconomic status because they don’t want others to know about it. For example, my family isn’t the riches family in the world, nor are we poor, but we don’t like to tell everyone that we are either rich or poor because we don’t want other family members to be in our business. I consider my family middle-class because we are always working and not getting anything back meaning we don’t have time to save nor invest our money because our money gets distributed to other bills. We are always working, and we don’t like to tell others that we are poor.
I feel as though whenever someone vocalizes his socioeconomic status others view him/her as bragging and rude. For example, I wouldn’t want some rich person to tell me that they are stinking rich to the fact that they wipe their sweat with crisp bills. I feel as though there is a negative connotation when someone brags about how rich they are. This is because we as commoners feel as though they are throwing their richness in our faces.
Also, nobody wants to talk about money because it is such a touchy subject. Take for example, many couples dating don’t talk about money during their first encounter because its such a touchy subject. Usually, couples would like to talk about each other’s favorite colors, or favorite song. I feel as though whenever someone talks about money or brings up that subjects, one is more than likely going to get into an argument about it,
I feel as though people don’t voice out their socioeconomic status because they don’t want to be judged by others, for example people might treat you differently based on socioeconomic status, for example one might treat you better because you are rich, and might treat you like crap because they feel as though you are poor, not knowing your background and how to ended up in that situation
Many people stereotype you based on your finances, for example if someone was born into a rich family and vocalizes how rich he is, others might think that he is snooty and spoiled, but if someone is poor, others might think he is poor because he is lazy and doesn’t know how to handle or control his finances.
If I were filthy rich, I wouldn’t want anyone to know because I don’t want them to judge me base on my finances. For example, if I told a guy that I like that I was rich, and he becomes interested in me, I wouldn’t know if he is interested in me because of my wealth or because he truly loves me, and the same goes for if I was poor.

Ever since I could remember society has had a say in everything that we do. Society has defined what Beauty is and who is considered beautiful. Our society puts so much emphasis on overall appearance and beauty that our generation feeds into it. I feel as though we have been brainwashed into thinking what society believes beauty is. For example, if someone has an exotic eye color (e.g. green or grey) that person is considered beautiful.
Americans have been programmed to think that if someone is mixed with multiple ethnicities, he/she is considered beautiful. I am not trying to diminish anyone’s perception of beauty, but I feel as though as young individuals, we can’t limit ourselves to thinking what society has put in our heads. We need to be more open-minded of what true beauty is, and not feed into what society wants us to believe.
It doesn’t ease the fact that our generation isn’t given the opportunity to choose for ourselves given all the “role models” that we look up to. Today, in the media we see people like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Demi Lovato and many more who always look radiant with their smooth flawless skin, tight bodies, muscular but also define legs and arms and more. This is what we have grown to see and want to be, that when we see an ordinary person, we label them as not up to par as society labels the beautiful.
I feel as though there are so many beauty products claiming to “enhance” one’s beauty that we fall into the trap of purchasing them thinking that they will create miracles. For as long as I could remember women have been put in this category where they have to be “perfect” in any way possible. We have to keep up appearances in all aspects. I feel as though society has drawn us into look flawless. For example, we have to be hairless everywhere but our heads, we have to have a cute little shape without any stretch marks, our hair always has to be done, and we always have to look our best. I don’t agree with this philosophy at all. Why is it that women always have to look perfect, but we don’t hold that same standard to our opposite sex; men? I feel as though if we are required to look our best at all times, then the same goes for men.
I feel as though everyone should be entitled to live their lives their own way. For example, if I am against tweezing my eyebrows, I don’t feel as though I should be pressured to do so because society will frown upon me. We claim that we are the country of freedom where everyone is entitled to make his/her own decisions. Why is it that we subject ourselves to what society has instilled in us? I feel as though we as women should have the right to make decisions about our bodies and overall appearance.