Synthesis Post

Psychology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice are three extremely different yet difficult majors to join but especially to succeed. These three majors are in the field of social science and all deal with careers that dig deeper into understanding the human mind and help people.

Freshmen who are interested in the social science field should start by narrowing down the majors you are interested in, start to learn about all the various career options, and talking to a counselor.

· There are many various majors in the field of social science

o   Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Social Work, Criminal Justice, etc.

o   Even with the variety of majors, the field of social science as a whole offers many different ways to succeed in college

o   Within these majors there are many different career options

· The most important part of learning in the field is helping people

o   The field of social science is centered around helping people so if you consider yourself helpful to others this is the field for you

o   Our field may not have the highest salaries but you choose social science not for the money but mainly focusing on the people you are helping

  Why research is important in the field of social science

o   Research plays a huge role in our field because it provides answers to questions about humans that was unknown before

o   Click here for more about research in the field of psychology

  
If you are interested in joining the social science field here are a few insider tips tp understanding three of the majors.

Psychology	o Decide what type of psychology you want to pursue o Click here to learn more o Get an idea of what your dream career is! o Does it require graduate school? PhD? o Average Salary- ~$70,000
Social Work	o Start by thinking about what you want to do in this career. o Need a master’s degree to become a licensed social worker. o Don’t make a lot of money, so you know you’re not doing this for money. o There are lots of fields within this major. For more info about different social work practices, click here.
Criminal Justice	o        Does it require graduate school? o        Has to be a field you're passionate about, don't make a lot of money o        No specific degree needed, Criminal justice is such a broad field o        Click Here to learn more about the different careers in the Criminal Justice field

Prompt 5

BY: CHE

The Michigan State school of social work is one of big communities in the social work field and the biggest campus organization for social work majors/interests. For students who are both majoring and interested in the social work field, their website is a huge resource and a great guideline.

The way they represent themselves to the public varies in lots of different ways. For example, one) they come to classes that are related to social work and introduce organizations that students can join, two) they hold lots of events that are related to social work and help students to find opportunities they can get more involved in this field, etc.

I've been participating in one of the outside organizations. It was introduced by method example one; they come to classes that are related to social work and introduce organizations that students can join. I thought the organization that the person introduced was interesting and is a lot like what social workers do, so I joined. Once I joined, I could really see what social workers do on daily basis and have real life experiences that are strongly related to social work practice.

What I've observed from the outside of this community is that this field looks mentally exhausting because of all the emotions that social workers would go through almost every day. Then when I actually joined the community, I realized my guess was right.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

BY: SKYLLAR

PICTURE LINK

This week in my psychology class we learned about social psychology. Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagine, or implied presence of others. Originally, I had no interest in learning about social psychology and didn’t see this branch as something I would be interested in. My thoughts on this changed once my professor started talking about the Stanford Prison Experiment.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a psychological study about the psychological effects of perceived power. The study was done by a social psychologist named Philip Zimbardo. The study involved a group of teenage boys, who volunteered to be a part of the study. The boys were randomly assigned, half of them were prisoners in a simulated prison that Zimbardo constructed, and the other half were prison guards. At first, the guards were calm. They didn’t have any rules except that they couldn’t harm the prisoners. Seeing as it was just a study, everyone was a little unsure of how they should act at first. That began to change very quickly. After only two days the guards began to act extremely powerful over the prisoners. The prisoners wore ID numbers, which is how they addressed one another. The prisoners soon began to lose their sense of identity and became their number. The guards sent prisoners to “The Hole” to discipline them, which was their version of solitary confinement, they made the prisoners constantly doing physically exerting tasks, such as push-ups and jumping jacks.  The guards also harassed the prisoners quite often. The study was supposed to last two weeks, but because of how evil the guards were becoming and how mentally unstable the prisoners were becoming it had to come to an end after only six days.

I read about the study online and also watched the movie “The Stanford Prison Experiment” which, to my surprise, actually portrayed the original experiment extremely well. Professor Philip Zimbardo also wrote a book about the experiment called “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”. The book sounds extremely interesting and I definitely want to read it in the future. This study has sparked my interest so much, and it’s crazy to think that originally I never had any interest whatsoever in social psychology.

Zimbardo, Philip G. "Home." Stanford Prison Experiment. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.

EDWIN SUTHERLAND

BY: DWAYNE

PICTURE LINK

Theory is necessary for capturing the essence of criminology. In this blog where going to talk about the Theory of "Differential Association" made famous by Edwin Sutherland (1883 - 1950).

Perhaps the most influential general theory of criminality was that proposed initially in 1934 by Edwin Sutherland (1883-1950) in his theory of differential association. Simply stated, the theory indicates that individuals become predisposed toward criminality due to an excess of contacts which advocate criminal behavior. Due to these contacts a person will tend to learn and accept values and attitudes which look more favorably upon criminality.

This theory caught my attention, first I don't think o theory is 100% accurate, and in criminal justice there is are theories about almost everything. I do feel like some theories do hold more truth then other and this being a example. I believe that the more you are exposed to crime and deviant behavior the more likely you are to pick on those specific actions. Not saying that its inevitable, but there is a change and I think the higher percentage is leaning towards those who chose the wrong path because of the things they see around them. Please feel free to comment any thought or information you have.

Prompt 10

(Interview was conducted via phone)

In the last few months, the amount of police brutality incidents against African-Americans and Latinos have seemed to be on the rise.

There is no denying that it is easy to write this from my perspective. I’m not a cop and have never been in the line of fire. But, to any human being, some of the videos and stories we’ve seen and heard strike us as excessive.

So, instead of writing an editorial on police brutality incidents, we decided to go straight to the source – the Detroit Police Department.

I was lucky enough to land an interview with an African-American cop who will remain unnamed. He’s been in the force for almost seven years and patrols the neighborhoods of Brooklyn.

Me: as of the recent events some would say the police department use unnecessary force wen resolving problems. what's your views on the topic?

Officer: People be quick  judge us, but haven't really been in our shoes. some situations could have been handle but we don't wake up planning to hurt nobody but at the end of the day we cops but first we humans and we make mistakes.

Me: I know in every profession has a certain language they can you talk about the language used among cops?

Officer: People think we have secret codes we use. we really just talk within the law. if you know the law then thing we say and conversation we have you can follow along, but if you don't know the law then you would be stuck and confused.

Me: Is it a certain way you guys write papers in you field?

Officer: When writing on a document you have to be careful. Everything In my field 9 times out of 10 is a legal document and can hold up in court. We handle a lot of important paper work and your signature is this field of wok is one of the most important things.

That concluded the interview. I want to give a thanks to the officer involved in the interview. Feel free to comment your opinion.

Why is Research Important?

BY: SAVANNAH

PICTURE LINK

Have you ever wondered where we get all of our information about families, the mind, criminals, and behavior? It's all due to the wonderful world of research. Social scientists are involved with solving many of the world's biggest problems, such as violent crimes, behavior, mental illness, family care, and cyber security. Areas such as social and primary care, the justice system, and business, to name just a few, social science is extremely important and necessary. Most of the time social science gets underrated for the work that they do. The STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math fields) usually over power all investments and funds from the government. Social scientists gather a lot of important data such as finding new ways patients in hospitals can have better experiences, finding causes and solutions to sleeping patterns, finding out new and effective ways that children in foster care can live a happy life. Social scientists have the ability to look at the world as others do and by doing so, they catch a lot of information that may have been missed before. No subject can stand alone without a normal perspective so social science can fit into any category, so in other words, social science can play an important role in any field of science. Research is so important to the world around us. 

https://www.studyinternational.com/news/the-importance-of-the-social-sciences

Self Care for helping professionals (+everyone)

BY: CHE

PICTURE LINK

All helping professionals are very likely to experience big stress due to overwhelming emotions they may get from working with clients. "Every therapist needs a therapist." Because it is always important to take care of yourself, I'd like to share some self-care strategies in this post.

Self-care strategies vary from person to person, but the first step would be recognizing your stress. Helping professionals absorb lots of emotions from clients and the work itself that can be hard to handle such as depression, anger, fear, loneliness, trauma, pain, and more. It's important to acknowledge that it can cause secondary trauma or compassion fatigue. Secondary trauma can be developed when the clients' stories are similar to our own issues that we have had in the past or are having at the moment. Compassion fatigue can be developed when the clients' issues bring exhaustion to our ability to work effectively. Symptoms of secondary trauma and compassion fatigue may include but not limited to the following; flashbacks of our own experiences, trigger, old-wounds reopened, personal depression, overworking yourself, nightmares, feeling unfulfilled by your work, and physical symptoms such as sleeplessness, decrease or increase in appetite, panic or anxiety attacks, and easily startled etc. 

Self-care is very important to not only helping professionals but to everyone, obviously. We all go through stresses nearly every day whether it's small or big. I hope this gave some ideas of self-caring methods and reminded you that you deserve a break because you are important!

info source: Self Care for Therapists- http://www.nadta.org/membership/selfcare-for-therapists.htm