My Academic Introduction

My name is Simón Recabarren, I'm 18 years old, I am studying Pschology at Universidad of Chile, this is my second semester, so I am not so sure of what to do about an specialization in the field. But, there are some things I am interested in learning. For example, there is a subject I really like, it is Epistemology, wich is about find out the basement of the knowledge, and being sceptic about everything you know, and I like when you have to question the information you receive; maybe in the future I would do something related to that. In general, about the Psychology major, I think it is like a mixture between Philosophy and knowledge of the human mind and its behaviour. Actaully, that is one of the reasons why I decided to study Psychology. Another reasons why I decide to tsudy this, it is because When I was at school I heard a lot of people talking about their experiencies whit a psychologist; they said that they hated it, or they didn't feel comfotable to talk, basically a bad experience, and I think I could help in that, making someone to feel more comfortable to talk and giving to the pacient a better enviroment. That, if I dedicate to clinical Psychology, but that is not my only option, I am thinking about educational Psychology too, and it is a little bit different from the other one. I am not very sure what to choose, but I have four years to find it out.

If I have to talk about programms, researchings or anything else, I have not thought about it, it is not so clear to me what to do, so at the moment I am just going to study and read to learn and knowing more than I know about Psychology.
I can say that as a first year Psychology student at University of Chile, I can not made up my mind yet, about my future as a real psycholigist, but I have some ideas, but nothing very clear, but I am going to find that out in the process.

My opinion about the english class

I can say that I enjoyed a lot this class, I think it was very dynamic, and how it was just with a few students, the class was more personal, and asking questions it was easier because of that. About the blog I would say that it was the easiest part, but not because it was a simple thing, it was because you were free to speak in your on way, with the words you want, and if you have a doubt you could answer it using WordReference or with some help from the teacher.

I think that still are a lot of things to improve about my english, one of the most important improvements that I need is to expand my vocabulary, I feel that I don't know too many words and that limited me, beacuse it is harder to express correctly what I want to say and I just repeat the words that I already know. Also, I need to know better what words I have to use in certain moments, and I need to differentiate words that for us are almost the same, but for a native english speaker are not, like for example ''for'' and ''to'' and ''at'' o ''in'' and ''on''. It is hard for me to know sometimes when I have to use them correctly. 

I don't know how achieve these improvements, but untill now, the way I have learned english was listening to music in english and seeing their lyrics, and watching series and movies in english, so I think i will do it that way.

Finally, I use my enlgish when I hace to talk with some that speaks english (that's happen just a few times), or when the instructions of some products are in english, or when I listen to some music and I want to know what is the singer saying, but actually it is hard to use what I know of english in a country that speaks spanish and not so many people know english, certainly it is a challenge to learn more about english hahaha.

About the university...

I have been studying psychology just one semester, so I do not have too many ideas about the curriculum. Nevertheless, I have some opinios about the classes and methods that theachers use in their classes.

First of all, I think there are some subjects are in a major level of difficulty for what a first year's student need, so that makes to students to feel that they are not prepare to the university life, but it is not necessarily that, it is just that the subject is harder and require a work level. Another thing is that I would like to have more subjects related to psychology, because having subjects that makes you feel bored and think that maybe that career was not what you think it was it is not very exciting, but maybe if you wait untill the next years you will discover that actually it was what you thought about the carrer.

About the texts that teachers ask you to read, I think that some of them have the idea of a perfect student, beacuse it is not always possible to read all the texts that they ask you to read. Maybe it is necessary for us to read those texts, but sometimes it is just impossible to read them all, because at the same time we have that university works that are on a harder level, so we need time doing them, but at the same time we need to read the all thoes texts that also are hard to understand (not all of them but most of them). So it would be cool if teachers thought a little bit about that; they also was on our situation. By the other hand, I can say that all the teachers in this semester have been pretty comprehensive and kind, so even if university can be such a living hell sometimes, teachers can help you to make you feel a little bit better.

A little review about the teachers assistants, is that some of them are not very good in what they are doing, and that is kind of annoying, because you ask for some help, but or they doesn't help or it is a lazy help, so it is almost like not having a teacher assistant.

About the faculty, I can say that it is actually good, there are many places to study, read or just for having a good time with friends, it only need some grass in some places haha.

There is a thing I would like to emphasise. I like that teachers upload most of texts in ucursos because you can have fastly the material you need to study and need to be waiting for someone else that is reading the text that you need and have to wait untill that person finished the text.

Well, that is all I can say by the moment.

PD: Eventhough all the things I said before, I like being at univeristy hehe, I'm waiting for all that construction at university to be fnished, because I like de faculty.

PD2: Sorry if I wrote too much hahaha.

Winter Holidays

In general, I don't think too much about what to do in my winter vacation, I just think about resting a lot and not to worry about any university homework. Now, if I have to think about a place to go on winter holidays, probably it would be a tropical country, like Cuba. I have to admit I'm not a very huge fan of cold and winter, the rain is not exactly my friend hahaha, actually, in the rainy days I feel so uncomfortable, because you need to wear a lot of clothes not to feel the cold, and be worry about not getting wet, and if you get wet, it is cold so you feel colder. That's why I would like to go to some tropical place, at last, if you get wet the weather keeps being hotter so it is not that uncomfortable. 

I have to say that I like to be around my family, so I would go in a familiar vacation, also it is people that I already know so I would feel more comfortable.

If I went to a tropical country, Obviously I would visit a beach, drink some exotic fruit juice, swim in those warm waters, maybe do some snorkel, I would feel such a typical turist hahaha.

When I think in winter holidays I do not think about working, as I said before I would rest a lot and just think in which series will be the next one to watch.

Well, I need to be clear with something, even though I said I would go to a tropical country, I'm more a home-loving guy, there is nothing that I prefer more than being in my house relaxed, listening to music, reading something, eating something I improvise, and that sort of things.

My Favourite TV Show...

At the moment, my favourite TV show is Glee, this series, that started in 2009, it is about a group of guys that are not very popular at High Schoool, called William McKinley High School, they are part of a singing club (Glee Club), where they are called themselves as ''New Direction''. They have to paticipate and win in differente singing competitions to stay in the club, because if they don't, the club disappears. At the same time the series shows their lives, and how they are at the High School, showing topics like bullying, romance, sexuality and discrimination. Besides, the Glee Club is a club very rejected by the school (at least for the rest of the students), so that makes harder to survive at the High School. On the other hand, the series shows how they succed and start to be more popular and appreciated by the other students.

The main characters are William Schuester (who manages the club), Rachel Berry (The female singing leader), Finn Hudson (The male singing leader), Kurt Hummel (He is in love with Finn, and has a rivalry with Rachel, at leats at the beginning), Quinn Fabray (She is Finn's girlfriend, but she got pregnant by another one of the club), Noah Puck Puckerman (The best friend of Finn and the Quinn baby's father), Tina Cohen-Chang (A girl who pretends to have stutter), Artie Abrams (Who is in a wheelchair and is in love with Tina), Mercedes Jones (An Afro-american girl), Santana Lopez and Brittany Pear (Both of them are in the Cheerios).

My favourite episode is the ninth episode of the first season, basically beacuse in this one my two favourite characters make the first ''Diva-off'' of the series, singing the song ''Defying Gravity'' from the musical ''The Wicked'', and I like that song too, so it makes it too enjoyful to see for me.

I see this serie because I like things related to musicals and that stuff, also because I like the topics that the series talks about, and shows them in a funnier  and more artistic way, and also beacuse they sing so many songs in all the episodes so I listen to songs that I never heard before, and some of them I really like. Those are the reasons why I like to watch this serie.

What about my future....

I have never thought very much about what I will do after finishing my career, and the reason why, is because at the moment I am focused on doing it well in these five years of psychology. I mean, I have some ideas of what to do in my future, but actually, I don't even know about a postgraduate study, I feel as if it is like a very distant idea for me, maybe because they are five years of studies, and I would like to do it well in this time lapse.  I need to be sure that this is what I really want in my future, because, if I don't feel like that this is for me I will not do a postgraduate study. Maybe that's why I have not thought about it, because I feel like maybe I couldn't handle this. When I start with this career I knew that it would be difficult, but you never know how hard it can be untill you face it. So, for now, I just want to do it well with my subjects; reading the texts, doing the projects, works, tests, etc. I haven’t adapted myself to the university rhythm well enough, and most of the time it is hard for me to read and understand successfully the texts.

I’m sure that in the future I will have a clear answer about a postgraduate study, but for now, I just want to make it through in these five years of psychology. 

My future Job

At the moment, I have an idea of what I would like to work in, but this idea can change with time. I would like to work in a school, as a psychologist, with secondary and high school students, but I'm not very sure about how it would be, maybe working with teachers and ways of how they are teaching and treating the students, and talking in private with them if they have any problem or if I see if they need to talk about something. So, I don't know how to classify it, if an outdoor or indoor job, maybe an outdoor one, because I would need to be seeing teachers doing their work in class, walking around the school while the students are in their break, to see if everything is ok, but at the same time it will be an indoor job (just sometimes) because I would be talking with students/teachers/other in a particular place, and I would need a place where I can work alone and write schoolar documents, read files, and that sort of thing.

As I said before, if I would work in a school I don't know if I will need to do too many travels, but if I seet in an academic way, of course it would be awesome if I travel to different places and countries, because in that way I would learn a lot about educational psychology and expand my knowledge and I would improve my working efficiency.

If someone ask me why I would like to work in this, I would say because I feel like people in general doens't like very much psycholigists, actually, most of them (including me) think or thought that they are just for people that are too bad, that really need help, almost like if the psychologist is just for crazy people, so I feel like we try to avoid them, but actually it is not like that, actually they can be very helpful to anyone that just need to talk about something that you are not very sure of how to approach it. I think that feeling is more visible at school, so that's the reason I would like to work in a school, specaly working with the students.