Week 1

I got my first real taste of this class.

It was pretty sweet. I feel like I've learned something every day or thought about something I've never thought about previously. For example, we talked about stereotypes and their complete uselessness. Although I've known about how stupid they are, my teacher got me thinking about them with a new perspective.
We also went through an activity where the class "judged" three of our classmates using adjectives that the teacher wrote on the chalkboard. It was interesting because nobody knew the three people personally, and although there were both positive and negative adjectives on the board, the class only used the positive adjectives. This was expected because only a real jerk would talk down on their classmates right in front of their faces, and of course, nobody in our class is a jerk. (None of the negative adjectives would've matched their personalities anyways)
We also watched a TED Talk on the topic of vulnerability. I really liked it because it got me thinking about my own thoughts on the subject. I generally don't like being put in a situation where I am vulnerable, and I think twice before saying anything. Honestly, I'm not sure if I can follow the guidelines the speaker put out, but I'll put some serious thought into trying.
Finally, we talked about our service project today. I think it sounds like an interesting experience to replace a final exam. I already do a lot of volunteer work with my church, so volunteering is nothing new to me. I'm going to try to reach out to other groups for this project. That polar plunge sounds really fun... I'll probably look into it a bit more myself.

First Post - Sociology

Hi, my name is Austin.
I'm a seventeen-year-old high school student. My academic interests are centered around math/science and I'm looking into studying engineering in college. I'm on the Boys Gymnastics team in high school, and I really enjoy the sport, practicing all year round until season comes every spring.

I only have one new class this semester, and that's Sociology. So far, I've really enjoyed the relaxed mood of the class (for all 3 days we've had so far...). I've actually been really interested in how the human mind works, and I was disappointed that I couldn't fit AP Psychology into my schedule. I'm finding this class to be a nice alternative.
Oh yeah, and the teacher is awesome. I actually looked her up on ratemyteachers.com ahead of time(a bit creepy, yeah?) and was happy to see lots of positive comments. I also found out she tells jokes to the class every Friday, which reminds me of my APUSH teacher last year... Hopefully her jokes will be better.
On the first day of class, she conducted an 'experiment'. She waited outside until everybody got to class, and after everybody took a seat, she sat at her desk and just watched us. I wouldn't really say it got awkward, since most of us saw that something was going on, but I did get extremely bored very quickly. I'm not very good at sitting still... Anyways, we sat there for a few minutes until she finally broke the silence and explained the point of the 'activity'. I thought everything she did was really clever, and that got me excited for the class. From what I've heard, this class is supposed to be fairly fun and relaxed, which makes for a nice break in the middle of my crazy school schedule(Calculus III/Linear Algebra are a pain...). It's especially nice now that I'm a second semester senior that's already been accepted Early Decision to his top choice. I'd like to just relax in school and not care about my grades, but that's not really in my nature... so I'll just tough it out until June.