I suppose I should probably explain why I called this blog "Growing Up".
However old I was I could never really picture myself being a real adult, and actual grown up. Even once I started college I couldn't think of what I would actually do once I was out of it.
I started getting my undergrad at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point in fall 2007. After declaring a History and Broad Field Social Studies double major and half-assing it for two years I took an Introduction to Organizational Communication class that made me decide to switch to a Communication major. Even after the relief and excitement over finding something I loved doing I didn't want to graduate and become a big kid, so I managed to stretch out my classes into staying an extra year in school, and graduating in the spring of 2012. That last year wasn't even enough, so now I'm staying put to get a Master of Arts in Interpersonal Communication, specifically focusing on Health Communication.
While I definitely do not hold the city of Stevens Point dear to my heart I stayed here for several reasons. One is that they decided to pay me to go to school. After paying thousands of dollars of student loans for my undergrad over five years, and now they decide to pay my tuition and then some just for teaching a couple section of the basic Introduction to Public Speaking class. Another financial reason is that I get to keep my job on campus. I have probably the highest paying student job on campus working as the student scheduling manager for UWSP Protective Services: Police and Security. Twice a semester I help my boss make a schedule and then sit on my butt watching TV and doing homework waiting for the phone to ring. It's a cozy gig. The third and probably best reason I'm staying here for a bit is that I finally have an awesome boyfriend who is back from Iraq for the third time and will finish his undergrad here about the same time I graduate, again. He's wonderful and I wouldn't want to be away from him for anything!
So essentially these next two years are the last push to get myself out the door into the real world. But then again there's always a PhD....
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Hello! "Parenthood" and Support Groups as Normalicy
With my first semester of graduate school underway I find that I need another outlet to dump stress, ideas, and questions other than friends, family, and my professors. Since I have awful handwriting a paper journal didn't seem like the best spot for noting anything I might want to re-read in the future, so hopefully this will be a better alternative!
I'm working on my Masters in Interpersonal Communication in small town Wisconsin and will hopefully graduate in spring 2014.
While I typically focus on health communication today's inspiration came from watching the TV show Parenthood. It's one of my new favorite shows and I'm obsessively catching up with it on Netflix in any spare time I have. The show's portrayal of Max, a child with Asperger's, a social/behavioral disorder on the Autism spectrum typically annoys me because of the way the show implies it's okay for families to be so helpless and bend to the child's every whim. While I am in no way an expert, with a little digging I found plenty of criticism by families dealing with the problem and from behavioral specialists. One thing that did strike me while watching the episode "Booth Job" was when Max's mother Kristina started going to a support group for parents of children with Asperger's.
In health communication there is the idea of experiencing your symptoms and problems normally. Patients search for clues and reassurances that they have a normal, explainable problem and whatever the problem is, being a textbook example typically leads to more peace of mind than being an abnormal patient.
So when I was watching Parenthood and I noticed that as Kristina appeared to be identifying with other parents and experiencing a sense of relief at hearing other people with similar problems I realized that Support Groups function as this monitor or normalicy for social problems. It might seem like a duh, of course they do moment, but I think it would be interesting to research and write about. I'm sure it has been exhausted in the psychology end of research, and at least a fair amount in communication, but I wanted to save it here as a reference in case I need a paper idea for an upcoming class.
I hope to come up with more ideas, and hopefully more original and insightful ideas to post up here in the future, probably along with some personal posts as well!
I'm working on my Masters in Interpersonal Communication in small town Wisconsin and will hopefully graduate in spring 2014.
While I typically focus on health communication today's inspiration came from watching the TV show Parenthood. It's one of my new favorite shows and I'm obsessively catching up with it on Netflix in any spare time I have. The show's portrayal of Max, a child with Asperger's, a social/behavioral disorder on the Autism spectrum typically annoys me because of the way the show implies it's okay for families to be so helpless and bend to the child's every whim. While I am in no way an expert, with a little digging I found plenty of criticism by families dealing with the problem and from behavioral specialists. One thing that did strike me while watching the episode "Booth Job" was when Max's mother Kristina started going to a support group for parents of children with Asperger's.
In health communication there is the idea of experiencing your symptoms and problems normally. Patients search for clues and reassurances that they have a normal, explainable problem and whatever the problem is, being a textbook example typically leads to more peace of mind than being an abnormal patient.
So when I was watching Parenthood and I noticed that as Kristina appeared to be identifying with other parents and experiencing a sense of relief at hearing other people with similar problems I realized that Support Groups function as this monitor or normalicy for social problems. It might seem like a duh, of course they do moment, but I think it would be interesting to research and write about. I'm sure it has been exhausted in the psychology end of research, and at least a fair amount in communication, but I wanted to save it here as a reference in case I need a paper idea for an upcoming class.
I hope to come up with more ideas, and hopefully more original and insightful ideas to post up here in the future, probably along with some personal posts as well!
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