What I've Learned...

I have already learned SO much from this course.  We have covered three main topics already: Sociological Mindfulness, Social Imagination, and the Social Construction of Reality.  By learning about these three things and by thinking like a sociologist I've been looking at things quite differently.  Sociological mindfulness is the practice of tuning-in on how the social world works.  While being sociologically mindful, I noticed that people easily feel awkward and unconformable. When someone or something is out of place, we as Americans try to avoid it, so we do not feel even more uncomfortable.  Sociological imagination is all about realizing the cultural meaning of the social sciences.  This weekend I was at my cousin's wedding, and a family member had brought our family tree that she has been working hard on for a long time.  In this HUGE binder, she had all the information on our family going way way back to my great, great grandparents.  She had pictures of everyone, and all this interesting information.  I got to see what my great grandparents looked like.  And to see how they dressed and what they did for fun.  In my grandmother's childhood, it was "cool" to have big hair and glasses, then my mother's age to wear high wasted pants, and then I get to see my generation like skinny jeans.  All of us were aware of our surroundings which made us, us.  I was able to draw these conclusions because I was using my Sociological imagination. The social construction of reality is how we interact with each other and look at each other's actions.  It's how we draw conclusions to things about other people.