Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Rebecca Dover
University of Tennessee
As Myers says in our textbook, “Our sense of self is at the center of our worlds.” I
Personal Reflection 2
believe this is certainly true, and even explains why we would be ending a three-week
study abroad experience in Athens, Greece with a paper discussing our own personal
thoughts and growth. I know that from the time I wrote the essay applying to be accepted
to this program until now, I have truly grown a great amount. I came into this experience
expecting to learn a few things, take some good pictures, and perhaps make a few new
friends. With expert traveler parents, sibling and grandparents I have always expected to
love travel as much as my family and to be able to similarly see many wonderful places. I
have found that this type of experience is not something to take for granted, though, as it
fully crossed over into adulthood. In American society the adolescent period is a time to
develop self-reliance, personal identity, and an independent self. This is not necessarily
something anyone is conscious of, but it is very apparent once that point has been
reached. This reminds me of the quote from the movie Life as a House saying, “You
know the great thing, though, is that change can be so constant you don't even feel the
difference until there is one. It can be so slow that you don't even notice that your life is
better or worse, until it is.” I feel like this is strikingly apparent in my life over the past
year. I have found that in coming to Greece for three-weeks, or perhaps being “uprooted
and placed in a foreign land” as the book says, my personal identity has remained
perfectly intact. My core values, beliefs, abilities, and dreams have stayed strong and
consistent. This is not something I claim half-heartedly, because I know looking back on
my time in Australia last summer that this did not used to be the case. My first experience
being away and on my own certainly taught me some things, but I was easily swayed to
go along with the group and at times even forget myself. This has been far from the case
Personal Reflection 3
in that sense this past year has solidified much of who I really am, and maybe explains
some of my recent maturity. I look back at the past year of my life leading up to this trip
as an evident time of immense growth and perhaps a crossing over into the next stage of
life.
I see now that I have become a product of my time and culture- a very confident,
independent person out of the very individualistic American society. My family and
friends are a very important part of my life, but I think I have come to find the ability to
consistently remain the same with them or away from them- a key aspect of being an
from the Temple of Poseidon, I realize that perhaps I would not be deeply shattered if my
who I am, and this is now completely on my own. I do not have to rely on their presence
or support anymore. They will always be incredibly significant, but I think maybe the
intention all along was to truly bring me to this point and let me take it from here. I will
certainly continue to evolve, but in the rest of my life I think it will left be up to me what
More immediately, I think my experience in Greece has fully prepared me for the
rest of this summer. From here I will be flying to London and traveling in Europe for two
weeks with friends from home. I know I will have much greater confidence in my ability
to get around as well as my ability to be comfortably away from home. I get one night to
sleep in my bed in Franklin and then I will be off to New York City to do a summer
internship.
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I will be living in Manhattan and leading mission groups in putting on weekly day
camps for inner city children in Brooklyn. As social psychology points out, we as people
tend to try to predict future behavior based on past experience. I predict that the self-
awareness and confidence I have acquired in this past year and specifically on this study
Also, in terms of the journal entry about urban versus rural, I think my experience in the
Greek culture looking at these things will help me in the transition to living in a huge
urban city like New York for two months. Having lived in a rural place in Tennessee
most of my life, city life is very different for me. The crowding, as discussed in social
psychology, increases anxiety and aggression and can even stimulate the demonstrations
and riots that are so prevalent in big cities, particularly Athens. Athens has become very
comfortable and attainable during my time here, though, and I expect the same for New
York. The pace of life is certainly faster and more crowded, but I have really learned to
Looking even further into the future, I know that my senior year of college is
going to go fast and I will soon be making decisions about what to do afterward. I think
this trip has helped open up a number of options because I more certainly trust my ability
to be away from home and manage on my own. I might be doing Teach for America
somewhere in the United States or something like World Teach in South America. I
could even be going on to graduate school. Whichever way I choose, I know I will be
able to succeed. My time of solitude in Athens showed me that I am perfectly happy and
content on my own- away from familiar people, away from a phone, and away from the
internet. I was not anxious, worried, or scared in any way. I have lost a lot of the fearful
skepticism that I came into this trip with- the people walking around primarily just mind
Personal Reflection 5
their own business. There is a vast difference between being safely aware and being
assuming, irrational, and judgmental which can easily be a fundamental attribution error.
I think it is important to be aware of this concept in social psychology because this kind
I think from this paper it is clear that I agree with researchers’ definition of social
psychology from a personal point of view. We are complex human beings that think
about, relate, and influence each other in very specific ways. My experiences in life
relating to my family, friends, teachers, coaches, meeting new people, and working with
others have all contributed to who I am and my perspective. I think this has huge
implications that traveling, meeting people from other places, and seeing other people’s
views can all broaden even the narrowest minded of people. We all affect one another
and like the audio clip we listened to in our last class- even the simple gender of a word
experience here in Greece and hope to take the many things I have learned home with
me. My favorite quote from Myers in the textbook is something I hope to always
remember and follow: “Success in school and beyond requires enough optimism to
sustain hope and enough pessimism to motivate concern.” With this one can never
Socrates in mind with his timelessly wise statement: “Know thyself.” I truly believe I
have gotten a good start, but know that will be a lifelong journey.