PSYC 1-0-Eric

So, I just finished my required PSYC 100 class and I got a B. (woohoo) Now get this, I got a very low B (81% low) and next to my grade the teacher wrote "Congratulations on having the highest grade in the class! Gold star!" first of all, what in the world can I do with a gold star? Can I trade it in to bump my grade up to an A? Can I spend it? What carat gold is it, and how big is it? Oh, and when will I be receiving this star? Secondly, what does it say about you as a teacher, when only one person in a class of 25 gets as high as a glorified C in your class? Are you a tough teacher? Is this some sort of psychology experiment you are trying to do?

My personal opinion on the matter is that this particular professor forged her degree. I almost asked for my money back (even though school is free for me) when she came to class one day and said, "I don't know very much about this chapter so we aren't going to lecture on it. it is in the book however, so it will be on the test." What?! How are you going to write questions for a test on something you know nothing about? Redunkulous! I also caught her teaching false hoods about things I had learned in the physiology class that I had taken the semester before. For instance, she told us that they did one study where a man tried to stay awake for a ridiculous amount of time, and he started to have hallucinations. She said they found out later that he had been taking things such as caffeine to help him stay awake and that those substances were causing the hallucinations. She said you won't hallucinate from being tired. Well, Dr. Cummings begs to differ. He taught that after your body reaches a certain point of fatigue (or tiredness) it will produce a hormone a lot like LSD to force your body to sleep. This hormone, just like LSD, can, and will cause hallucinations. I brought it to her attention, but she replied "I have done extensive research on the subject, and I have never come across that." I went home and found it in my text book, but I didn't call her out on it because after all, she was the one that would be grading my work. I'm just glad the question didn't come up on the test because then I wouldn't have known what to answer. Anyway, enough griping about my sub par professor.

Let me impart my newly acquired knowledge on the subject of Psychology. After all, this is PSYC 1-0-Eric. Let us start with Freud. Freud was a very smart fellow except that every one of his ideas weren't good enough, so someone had to come in and tweak them, or they were proved incorrect all together. Every time he came up in discussion our professor would transition by saying "Freud was proved wrong by..." or "This theory of Freud's was improved on..." One day I had had it. I raised my hand and said, "If Freud was always either wrong, or not quite accurate, then why do we still need to learn about him?"

The reply, "Because he was a genius."

"If he was a genius why was everyone always tweaking his stuff or proving it wrong"

"Because, after the tweaking of his theories they became an integral part of psychology."

"So other people made him a genius by changing what his ideas were?"

"Yes."

"Okay, good enough for me."

So there you have it. That was my biggest realization in the class. My other big realization was that psychology isn't based on facts, or even evidence really, just the interpretations of different people on different results. That is why there are 5 or more different ways to view the exact same scenario (i.e. behaviorism, functionalism, structuralism, psychoanalysis, humanism, etc...). No wonder it is so hard to study for. When the teacher has a question on a test you have to guess which type of psychology she wants the answer in. So for each question you need to know at least 5 different answers.

No I am not so full of myself that I don't think there is a possibility that I just really don't understand it. But, that is how I was taught. I mean, I was the highest scoring student in the class, and that is saying something. (Honestly, it probably isn't saying anything because I was the only Air Force guy in there. The rest were marines, so we all probably just didn't understand it.)

This reminds me...I want to start up my "Ask Eric" postings. If you have a profound question you would like answered either leave it in a post comment or email it to gumbyneedsemail@yahoo.com and I will answer your question to the best of my abilities in a post dedicated solely to your question. Remember, I am the person your mother warned you about, but I will give you the answers you are looking for even if they aren't the ones you want. Too all I bid adieu.