Final Entry (Reflection)

"Your final entry should include reflection on how you have changed throughout the semester and what you anticipate your next steps as a communicator (as a major) will be."

Throughout this semester, I have had many experiences that have shaped how I approach situations and relationships. Even though this is my second semester learning about this area of study, I have gained a large amount of knowledge from Comm 101C, Comm 100W, and Comm 130F (Social Movements). In hindsight, the class that has had the most impact on me would have to be Intro to Communication Studies. Even though some concepts were repeated from my previous classes, the reintroduction of concepts helped solidify them in my head.

For example, the idea of relational dialectics was not new to me this semester. I had learned about it in Comm 105, Self and Society. We discussed it at length, but I didn't really grasp it completely. It wasn't until we discussed it once again this semester that I was able to apply it to my life for my betterment. Specifically, it came in handy when dealing with parents. They always have been extremely supportive of my endeavors. In dealing with my moving away from home, I couldn;t understand their hypocrisy in disagreeing with my choice to leave home. My dad always talked about how I was an adult and needed a job and direction in order to be successful in life. Now I understand that although they talked about how important it was for me to leave and live on my own, they still secretly desired for me to stay home. Again, it was the push and pull impulses that made the situation complex and emotional. Even though they supported my decision to move out, it was not an easy thing to do. This realization has had a tremendous impact in how I see my parent's struggle. It makes me appreciate all they have done for me even more.

Keeping that in mind, I aspire to continue with my studies in Communication in order to become a better listener and speaker. Some key things I want to focus on are handling unruly customers at my job in a better, more productive way, and gaining expertise under the wing of the writing consultants I plan to work with next semester. This class has been eye-opening and really fun. I definitely learned a lot!

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are the conclusions we make about people that put them into boxes, attempting to reduce them from individuals into predictable one-dimensional beings. Unfortunately, this kind of unfair generalizations happen way too often in our world. All of us have heard certain characteristics about a group of people, usually in the form of "All [enter group here] are dirty," or "[] are all smart." This removes any individuality from the members of the group and paves the way for prejudice. Since the people in group are expected to act a certain way, then other people may mistakenly act in a different way with a person because of their appearance or their relation to a group of people. Without even knowing the person, you already make judgements about the type of person they are.

It is my guess that the majority of all people have been the victim of stereotyping. For example, because of my Mexican heritage, some people joke that all I eat is beans and tortillas, and that I am destined for work as manual labor, join a gang, or get another Latina girl pregnant. This is not exclusive to only minorities though. Because of my light skin and blonde hair, some people mistake me for White. They mention that I must not know how to play basketball, dance, or that I live in a middle to upper class suburbia. No matter the group, some people will attempt to generalize characteristics for all members of the group. These kind of characteristics limit what a person can be, because they are efforts to box people into easily describable categories. 

Epistemology (Body)

At work, there is a security guard who studied philosophy in school. I myself, like reading about things like "What is the meaning of life?" and other philosophical questions. Needless to say, we have some pretty interesting conversations. Once when I was going over my notes at work, I mentioned how I am learning about epistemology. Epistemology refers to study of knowing, and attempts to answer "how we know what we know?" During the discussion, we talked about how limited the human body is in experiencing the universe since we only have five senses. He argued that what we consider "truth" is what we can feel, touch, see, or otherwise perceive. Therefore, without the aid of machines capable of detecting radioactive rays and invisible neutrinos, we are doomed to never understand everything around us.

Another thing we talked about is how we decide what we "know" by collectively agreeing on certain things. We "know" that Columbus discovered America because it is common knowledge that is passed on from person to person. Well that may be a bad example, seeing as how it is widely known that Columbus did not in fact discover America. Rather, he kind of stumbled across it accidentally. But this just proves my point. The fact that we now "know" certain things happened or not is the result of unanimous agreement.

Another interesting tidbit that we discussed in class is Body Epistemology. This refers to the body's ability to know how to do certain things without us having to consciously command it. For example, my typing of this entry is not a laborious process because my fingers are used to tapping the keys in a certain order to form words and sentences. Similarly, when I play a fast solo on my guitar, I don't think about each individual note and finger motion. My fingers know where to go and my picking hand knows where each string is in relation to another. If I slow down the process, I make way more mistakes than if I just left my hands do their thing.

Haptics

Although this area of body language was briefly covered in class, I really enjoyed learning about the significance of touch in communication. The humorous allegory that Professor Fassett shared in class about how students touched her pregnant belly is a great example of this. Normally, touching another person comes with consent. It seems like in Fasset's case, she was not accustomed to people touching her without asking. Conversely, the students didn't even second-guess the touching of a professor on school grounds. In their eyes, there was no trespassing of comfort zones, since they may have grown up with different ideas of what is proper touching and what is off-limits.

Last semester, I took an Intercultural Communication class with Priya Raman. There was a whole section of class dedicated to the study of Haptics. It was interesting to see the variety in what is considered socially acceptable touching and what was culturally frowned upon. For example, in some Middle Eastern countries, it is not socially acceptable for a woman to touch a man that is not her husband. Compare that to the United States, where in my experience, girls would come up and hug/kiss boys they liked in elementary and middle school.What is considered "OK" depends on who you are asking and what context they find themselves in. Yet another example would include the distinction between playful touching in a friendly environment as opposed to in the office. "Playfully" touching a member of the opposite sex could be considered sexual harassment and cost you your job.

Impression Management

While going over the book in Chapter 4, I really got interested in the idea of impression management. Impression management is the "building of an impression of ourselves for ourselves and for others" (Warren & Fasset, 2011) [pg. 69]. The example in the text describes an African-American women, Harper, preparing an image of herself for a job interview. By reviewing books about professionalism and watching videos about proper business attire, she sets out to build this image of herself for the potential employer. The choice of clothing, her manner of entering a room and engaging with superiors, all work together to convey an impression of  Harper to the interviewer. Harper hopes that this impression she has constructed will convince the employer that she is a team player who can be expected to fit in with the rest of the workforce.

The reason this theory interests me is because most of us constantly manage our appearance or mannerisms in order to display an identity. One way this manifests is through the presentation of ourselves to a date. Imagine you have your girlfriend coming over, and your room is a mess. She could think that you are a slob and might think against hanging out with you again. In order to manage the impression, perhaps you decide to clean up the living room and hop in the shower an hour before she is scheduled to come over. Maybe even spray some Febreeze. Even though nothing has really changed about your sense of self, the other person will see you as a clean, responsible, organized man. (Until she moves in, of course)

Plan for Bachelor's degree

When I came to SJSU, I was a transfer student from Contra Costa College in San Pablo. Arriving at San Jose, I chose to explore the Communication department. My main interest was Business, so I felt that a major in Communication Studies would come in handy in the business environment. After completing one semester of Comm courses, specifically Intercultural Communication, Self and Society, and Business/Professional Speaking, I was done with my practice (P) requirements for my degree.

After speaking with an adviser at the end of my first semester, I realized that I also need to complete my core requirements as well as inquiry (I) and foundation (F). As this semester draws to a close, I will have completed one of the foundation requirements and two of the core requirements. All that is left to do the next two semesters is to complete another foundation class, and two inquiry classes. On top of that, I have to do an Applied Activity for two semesters. Thankfully, I think I know what I will do for my Applied Activity already.


While completing a Comm Workshop, I talked to Professor Peck. She extended an offer to become a writing consultant because of the potential in my writing. This kind of work would count toward the completion of my Applied Activity too. As a writing consultant, I would work in the Comm lab in the HGH building helping students with their essay writing. I have previously worked as a private tutor, and I have always enjoyed helping others. Hopefully this opportunity will also improve my writing skills in addition to the students I will be assisting. I can't wait to get started!

Relational Dialectics

Relational dialectics refer to the "knot of contradictions" that happens when you feel compelled to act in opposite ways at the same time. We discussed this idea in class when we went over the article about classroom participation. Even though we all want the classroom to be lively and have the students participating, sometimes we choose to not participate because of many factors. One example of this phenomena would the want to be open with your partner, and the simultaneous desire to want privacy. Similarly, there is the desire to see them, and also desiring for alone time. This isn't because you do not care for the other person, but you cannot realistically spend every hour with them. 

For me, this manifests in my relationship with my girlfriend. We see each other a lot because we go to the same school. Even still, sometimes I will decide to stay home and play video games or play soccer, even though I have the option of seeing her at any time. An example of the open/close relational dialectic in my relationship includes the desire to know everything about each other, but knowing that there are certain things we are still not comfortable sharing. Obviously I won't go into detail about what those things are, but it is OK to leave things off the table. 

Relational dialectics help us gain perspective on how complex our decisions and desires are in relation to others.It is impossible to accurately predict human behavior, because people are not one-dimensional characters.

Departmental Function

Difficult Dialogue

I had a great experience facilitating the Difficult Dialogue event in the Fall of 2011. I was taking Comm 105P, Self and Society, with Professor Holopainen. Part of the curriculum included getting into groups with other students to organize a discussion about important topics that are rarely explored. Topics ranged from suicide, depression to campus safety or things like racism. We had a lot of freedom choosing what we wanted to talk about, so we ended up designing our event around the discussion of alcohol and drug abuse on college campuses.

The purpose of this event was not to debate the ethics or legality of the issue, but to facilitate a better understand of a topic by having a safe environment for discussion. Students were encouraged to disclose their thoughts or experiences knowing that they would not be judged for what they say, as their experiences would contribute to the group's collective understanding. While participators were encouraged to talk and share experiences, the facilitator's, like myself and fellow students, were in charge of keeping the converstation productive and all inclusive.

This reminded me of the discussion of Self Disclosure in Chapter 8 of the textbook. In our discussions, people were initially reluctant in sharing experiences with drugs or alcohol. We were all strangers at a table, and it was up to the facilitator to invoke a "sense of feeling as though you both contribute to and benefit by the relationship. (154)" After introductions and some general questions,  people began to trust one another. After establishing the sense of interdependency, participators began to open up about themselves.

Since communication is the construction of meaning between different parties, every person has a stake in the conversations they make with other people. One major communication struggle that I deal with is my arrogance. I stick very closely to the transmission model of communication.  In my previous semester, I took Comm 105P, Self and Society with Professor Holopainen. When we began discussion of the Transmission Model, I realized just how limiting that frame of mind really is.

When I speak, I subconsciously try and persuade other people to see things my way. I feel that what I understand in my head is "correct" or "right." This is really evident when it comes down to questions of value. This is where I usually get into arguments with others since neither of us want to consider anything but what we consider our "truths". It is a huge fault of mine, but I have made progress in changing my attitude. I still have a ways to go, so I am hoping that this current semester fosters even more growth as I learn more about the Communication Studies field.

The main thing I aim to do is to change my mindset, which can only come from knowledge. Specifically, gaining a better understanding of how communication works. Understanding how communication functions is powerful, because by gaining an understanding, one can change behaviors in how they communicate with others. The main shift is to stop seeing communication as someTHING, and instead see it as what it really is. Communication is a process, in which meaning is proposed, evaluated, and contested. Although I have taken Communication classes before, there is still to learn and much to do.

Interest in Communication Studies

At first, I was not very interested in Communication Studies. Finishing High School, I felt no direction, so I decided on a major that seemed practical. An area of study that would definitely come in handy in the real world. I decided on communication as my field of study because it is something we do every day. The way we communicate is very important, because it shapes how each of us makes sense of the world around us. Understanding how communication works, and developing better communication skills, are the keys to overcoming many of life's obstacles. I am only now realizing this after spending a semester within this program, but it has greatly impacted my personal, professional, and intellectual life. I hope to grow in my understanding of communication and its vast implications over the next couple of months and semesters.

While it is exciting to know that there is much to be uncovered in the study of communication, the question arises: What counts as communication studies? Where do we draw the line that separates the communication studies field from another? It is interesting to note that since communication is ingrained to our daily lives, its domain is quite large. Anything that has to do with conveying messages between two parties is considered communication, which includes mass media, personal conversations, politics, relationships, and even art. It is all around us, yet invisible to the eye.

The end goal of my communication studies is to apply them in the workplace, particularly in business. Having a background in communication, specifically the skills used to persuade, are essential in deals between companies and businesses. Not to mention the ability to communicate effectively in public speeches or presentations. A degree in Communication Studies will give me the benefit of a well-rounded education with the ability to concentrate on what I decide to focus on.