E-Portfolio Site

Link to site: Kayla Wong's E-Portfolio

INTRODUCTION:

Hi my name is Kayla Wong, and I’m an undergraduate student at Penn State University Park (class of 2015). I would like to provide you with an introduction about me, and my academic endeavors. 

 

I came to Penn State with a clear understanding of what I wanted to study, and what my career would be once my educational studies were completed. As a sophomore in high school, I had added responsibility of caring for my younger cousins who were placed in my home through the foster care system. I’ve witnessed them go through so much physically, and emotionally, and it didn’t seem fair that kids so young had to face so much hardship. I thought about all the other children who had dealt with similar circumstances, and I knew that my career would involve helping young children who were living in non-stable growing environments. From that moment on, I knew that I wanted to contribute to the world by helping young children in the field of psychology. In my first year at Penn State, I’ve taken an array of courses ranging from anthropology, to statistics, and even Chinese. None of my classes have failed to teach me something knew, interesting, or guide me to perceive things differently and with an open mind. After taking a variety of courses, I have realized that I love learning about the mind, and what influences people’s behaviors. My psychology courses, and specifically my child development courses, has taught me so much about the ways in which people conduct themselves and helped me to understand why people behave or interact in particular ways. I’m always amazed at the new things I learned in child development because it teaches us about our lives from the very start and ways in which we go through a variety of developmental stages of growth, but still remain unique individuals. My college academic experience has allowed me to deeply think about my values and beliefs, continuously develop my views on society, and each semester brings me a step closer to pursuing my career.

Change in a Decade

"Kids born in the 90s have lived to see 3 decades, 2 centuries, 1 millennium, and most of us aren't 21 yet" (online quote). I was born in the 90s, raised thought the 90s and early 2000s, and it feels like I have live a completely different life. There has been so many changes since I was a child, in terms of fashion, trends, an array of new acceptance (race and gender wise), and a major and rapidly changing technological transformations. Many peers within my age group witnessed the change from house phones to smart phones, and for a large part most of us feel comfortable with technology in ways that our parents might not, and the younger generations will never understand. But for some reason, the 90s is commonly refereed to as a "simpler time" and there is just so much that we miss about the 90s and it truly wasn't so long ago. It seems like a far beyond time, but even with such advanced and efficient technological changes, we still yearn for the past experiences we had without them, and its crazy to imagine that my younger sister may never get to experience the great 90s that I miss so much.

The 90s seemed like best of times, our parents dressed and dressed us in things we would never be caught dead in today, we have special pop artist like N'sync and Spice Girls, our large array of television shows that are so much different than the ones today, and those simple toys we had that we could play with for hours and they did so little compared to the Xbox 360 game system. I know I miss the 90s, and I truly feel like that time and the essence of that time is apart of my character and the shared character of all of us early 90s babies. Maybe I can't return to the 90s, but I can re-vist my favorite part of my youth, and re-live it with my favorite television shows. With youtube and its large array of playlist collections, I can simply type in 90s shows, and watch my favorite seasons of Kenan & Kel, Recess, Rugrats, Hey Arnold, Animaniacs, Doug, All That, A Different World, and so many more. I just love going back and re-watching and remembering how excited I was to watch it on my once huge television thats now a flatscreen. It seemed to me that the style of the shows back then are so much different from the shows that they make for kids today. I watched some later television and family shows, and it was interesting to me how they would approach topics about teens and drugs or other family issues, and how they played out on the shows and then were discussed as an important issues after. It seemed like it was at that time, there was such a greater connectedness an need to examine issues as a socitey. When I watch reality shows and other television programs today, the ways in which they present topics and handle situations is now done for laughs and shows like "Jersey Shore" just seem to "kill my brain cells" because I feel like there is no more "messages" and "connectedness" that there once was on television shows. I've realized that in a short amount of years, our television programing has gone so far off of invented creativeness and with the larger variety of shows, it takes up a lot more time in our day just sitting around than being as active as we were in the 90s. I understand that we can't change our programming to be fitting to the 90s but looking back at all of our shows at that time, tells a lot about the logos of style about how programming has changed, and how the differences affect the ways in which we counteract in our society.

Anticipating the Birthday

The closer it gets to our birthdays, the more we anticipate the day and how we will celebrate it, or at least I do. The minute March approaches, I always start thinking about things I want as gifts, things I'll do, and the people I'll hear from. Being away from home and at college, somehow I anticipated that this birthday would be more special. After turning 19 this wednesday, I realized how much more special spending birthdays with my family members was. This birthday turned out a lot more different than I expected. Coming down with the flu the night before, I realized that this birthday wouldn't be as joyous as the rest. I barely made it to classes, and the only thing I wanted to do was sleep. I thought back to what it would be like celebrating at home, and how my grandmother would make be soup and cater tea until she felt at ease with my health. I also considered the fruit cake my grandma always made me, and no East commons cupcake could compare. I missed waking up to my mom surprising me with things I've always wanted but never directly asked for. Being sick in bed on my birthday was unfortunate, but it was everyone else's response or blessing of how that day should have been for me that made me homesick.

Like my mother, I always understood that my birthday is just a normal day like any other in the year, so I don't consider there to be some major life changing event that happens once I become a year older. Everyone called me to wish me, "an amazing day," "a crazy night," "one of the best days of the year," and "a beautiful day." I sat there reading my facebook birthday notifications, and all I could think was it was the complete opposite of what I anticipated it to be, as well as what my family and friends anticipated that day for me. Walking back from class I was stuck in a penn state bizarre and random hail storm, and I became so sick that I didn't want to leave my bed. It was the birthday comments that said a lot about peoples relationships with me, that spoke to the ethos of my character. I have so many cousins, and rather than them just wishing me a great day I got, "I miss you so much," "I wish you were home," "remember when we did this..." And my favorite of all was the pictures my younger sister posted of us, making my birthday wish to just be home with them. I loved explaining to my baby sister about being a teen and how that was different than being an adult. I think the ways in which people spoke on our relationship or my character was the logos in which it influenced how I responded to them and considered the importance of celebrating my birthday, or just my 19 years of experiences and memories.

Our Daily Bread

I've always enjoyed being apart of a community, and working to advance my community in any way I can. Since middle school, I have taken part in multiple community service opportunities ranging from planting flowers, to hosting a christmas party for kids in shelters escaping abuse. Each time I find that not only do I enjoy community service, but especially when it involves making other people happy, I love it more. As a freshmen I've only recently taken part in two community service opportunities at Penn State, and I hope to take on a lot more. The first was the Martin Luther King Day of service where we counted out stamps and sent boxes to stamp collectors. Again I felt good in being able to make someone happy, but my latest community service act seemed to change my outlook on service. I always felt like I was making someone else feel better in my community, but this time I realized it was so much more.

This wednesday for the first time, I went to help out at St. Paul's church for their bread basket. When I first went to the church, even though I was there to help out, because it was early, they made sure to feed me and show me around the kitchen. My job for the day was really simple, just to fill the water pitcher and carry the used dishes to the kitchen. While I ate, I sat with other students, some were foreign penn students, and others graduate students (so I haven't ever met them before). I also socialized with the other elderly people who came in. The man who was showing me around the kitchen stressed how much more my part in community service was effective in socializing rather than working. And after talking to other students about their majors and where they were from, I learned that he was completely right.

One graduate student who I found out was also a psychology major like me, told me about the importance of starting lab research early on. He didn't start until his graduate schooling, and thought that I should take his mistakes and start early on in my schooling with labs, and told me about the vast amount of undergraduate lab opportunities and students needed for them. Being from Mexico, he also asked me about New York City, and I learned how mind bottling the city appeared to other people. Most of all, this was the first community service opportunity where I learned that I could take away and learn so much more in my experiences and that it was not just about helping others feel happy.

The Power of a Smile

When I consider rhetoric as the art of persuasion in speech and writing, I tend to forget that there are other ways in which people could persuade others without any type of vocal modalities. And then I realized that one of the biggest ways I've been persuaded, is by a simple smile. People have said, smile to someone random, and it'll make their day, but I never realized just how life changing a smile truly was.

RIP A.F.

In this last month, I've learned so much more about the power of a smile that I had never considered before. One of my friends from elementary school, always had a smile on his face. Even though I hadn't talked to him in maybe years, I would see his facebook profile picture, and his smile, and he seemed to be a truly happy person. What I learned the hard way, was that a smile can be more than deceiving. A kid that always smiled, and further always seemed to want to make other people happy, hid so much pain beneath that smile. Over spring break, I found out that this friend took his own life, and it was a surprise to almost everyone. How could a person who grinned in every picture, constantly tried to cheer his mother up through her own sickness, and always joked around to make others smile, not see life worth living? I considered all the hurt and pain he must have held and kept to himself, and when I look back on his old pictures, the smile he carries tells such a different story. I believe that his smile was a comfort to those around him, and although he's gone, I know he no longer has to carry his pain. But I will forever look up into the sky, and imagine that beautiful smile looking down at all of us, his friends and family.

Recently I met this young lady who I thought was absolutely beautiful, she spoke with extreme confidence, and her jokes constantly had me at the edge of my seat. When she started to open up about her pain and past relationship that was filled with years of abuse, I immediately started to cry. What shocked me the most was that I had assumed by her appearance that this young lady was a happy and confident person, and I can't imagine the facade she put on to her loved ones and friends while she lived with such abuse. These last couple of weeks, have taught me so much about the assumptions we get from a simple smile. And when I think about how much we don't know or realize about the secrets and sadness beneath a smile, I question the ways we express ourselves to the people around us. Yet, I've learned the importance of truly getting to know someone, and making myself available just to listen if someone ever needed. 

How we share.

It is all apart of human nature to communicate through requesting things from others, informing others of information, and sharing with others. How we communicate in these aspects all functions to help us be like one another and to fit into our society. Through rhetorical persuasive means, as well as self or image presentation, we communicate these means in social climates. Now that we have such an advanced technological society and social networking systems, the ways in which we present how we want others to interpret our image is mostly done over sites like twitter, facebook, and now the most popular; instagram. As a society we have learned to advanced our businesses, social networks, and self presentation by how we express ourselves and share with others on sites like twitter and facebook. How you go about doing this and conducting yourself online helps gain you online followers who will support what you feel or say, as well as provide the most current and up to date news relevant between our social groups.

With instagram rising as another popular networking site, it allows people to express themselves through a different means; pictures alone. Although instagram is a iphone, and just recently, android phone application, its popularity is growing tremendously. Rather than talk to specific friends out of many on facebook, or give daily notifications of your day, we are using pictures to express the things that matter to us, as well as give our own self depiction of how people view us individually. Even though we all can't be photographers, instragram allows us to edit the picture quality, and stature, making them just as we want them to be seen. Some argue that instagram is just a place where, "average people can pretend to be photographers" or "people just post pictures of themselves". Yet, there are so many more that argue that the pictures represent peoples perceptions and what makes them who they are. Even further, with pictures,   others can see their own interpretation of what makes a photograph beautiful and take on a bigger perception of our world and world views.

Common Ground

In my anthropology class we have been learning about the origins and evolutions of human communication. In our small discussion group, I always found that there was such a great ease to our conversations on facial discussions and gestures. Without really knowing each other, we all shared common knowledge about the ways we communicate, and especially through networking sites, we found that we communicate in similar ways. In this class, we learned about the definition of common ground, in which we share ideas about the norms of people's behaviors and appearances. Societal common ground might involve holding a door open for someone, and rather than question why someone would hold a door open for us, shared common ground teaches us that this is a polite gesture, and normative to our society. Common ground can even be personal, something shared between two people or more that are close you. For instance, if I guided my friends attention to my textbook through a pointing gesture, through shared experiences that friend could easily interpret my meaning. For that close friend we could have already complained about the length of our reading, and so with a simple point they would interpret that easily. While if one was to point to that book without having a shared experience with another person, it can be interpreted in multiple ways, and the person might have to guess if you were discussing maybe needing that book, not liking it, or anything else. 

I started to think deeper about common ground, and how much more it is effective when considering rhetoric and the art of persuasion. Then I recognized rhetoric under this manner in social networking sites like twitter. Often we re-tweet comments that are interesting and cool, and personally I re-tweet things that I have a shared experiences on. One of my favorite tweeter to follow is @autocorrects, in which through rhetoric i am persuaded to check and follow its tweets because of its ability to tweet things that I feel are common to me. A lot of time I barely recognize daily habits that I have and share with others, but when people tweet about things I've experienced, I feel a closer connection to that person, and an even bigger assimilation to the people of my society. One of my favorite hash tags on tweeter are "#thatawkwardmomentwhen..." and it goes on to describe a couple of these moments. Most times I laugh at how much I realize I share in those awkward experiences, and it all falls into that common ground we hold as humans, and individuals in our particular societies and cultures.