Assignment 6- Bhoomi Shah

It's difficult to choose specifically one course over my student career that has really impacted me; however, if I had to decide it would be AP Psychology. I took this course during my sophomore year in high school and it was one of the most memorable classes that I have ever taken. I believe it left such an impression on me because of its real practicality and usefulness in our day to day lives.  AP Psychology combined all the subjects I love from history to biology. In the class, we learned about major historical figures, such as Ivan Pavlov or BF Skinner, who made huge contributions to the field of psychology with the groundbreaking research they conducted. Phenomena like classical conditioning or observant behavior, though may seem obvious to us today, was a concept shortsighted until these men and women conducted organized experiments to prove their theory.

However, it is not the only history that draws my interest. It's also the practicality of psychology that intrigues me. Being able to observe human behavior and specifically pinpoint why an individual may be acting the way that they are is a useful tool in my opinion because it allows us to expand our range of empathy. Along with this, we are also able to understand sometimes why we might a certain way in different scenarios. Why do we feel the need to conform to the standard? Why do we get angry over the most trivial of issues? Why do we overthink of other people's perception of us? These all are questions that have been asked throughout the field of psychology and are meant to expand our knowledge on the behaviors and thought processes of humans.

Finally, psychology also incorporates biology. I have always been interested in biology, even deciding so far as to major in it. In Psychology we learned about different parts of the human brain and how nerve cells communicated with each other. These topics were never really discussed in depth in 9th-grade bio and thus excited me as I was able to connect what I learned in science in Freashman year to what we were learning in pysch.  I felt very engaged with what we're learning, for it might have been a lot of information, but it was presented in an easier format to understand compared to AP Bio or anatomy.