Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

Everything that a person does influences their personality. In order to really understand why people are the way they are, it is vital to know where they came from and what there families were like. Looking back, I can pin point several aspects of my life that contributed to my temperament, attitude and overall personality. Even though the smallest details are important, I have selected a few of the larger details to discuss. These include, my gender, the small suburban area I grew up in, my family life, and my school. Each of these factors contributes to who I am.

I grew up in a small suburban town 35 minutes north of the Big Apple, in Mamaroneck, New York. I live with both of my parents and an older brother. Having an older brother has shaped me into the type of person that I am. My brother is a very athletic kid. He started playing sports when he was about four years old and continued playing up until he graduated high school three years ago. When I was younger I looked up to him as a role model because he was the only older person in my life at the time. I saw how my dad interacted with him and I wanted the same relationship. I used to dress up like him and go outside and catch baseballs with him and my dad and shoot soccer balls into a goal made of two cones. I really liked that my brother thought I was fun because I was interested in what he was doing. I didn’t need to play these things to gain respect, but I thought he was really cool. I always hung out with his friends, as long as my parents were watching, and was never afraid to do what he was doing. For instance, I went to Bermuda one summer and my brother was jumping off of a cliff into the water. I wanted to do it to show him that I could, so I quickly climbed up there after him and jumped in. Looking back on this I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking, but taking risks were fun to me at the time, as long as my brother thought so. Even if I did not really like what he was doing at the time, I’m glad I did it.

Sports are now a huge part of my life and probably wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for my brother. Family life had a huge impact in making me who I am today. I was a three sport athlete in school and won many awards in high school because of my accomplishments. My brother, without even knowing it, has made me a very competitive and determined person. He would always come home from games he lost in high school and seem very down and upset. He would get angry knowing that he practiced so hard just to have a negative outcome. When I began playing soccer, my mindset was the same. I was always fighting and striving to succeed. This resulted in me putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I wanted to win. He taught me to care about what I did and to have pride. My determination is a big part of who I am. For example, in soccer I was a captain of the varsity team for three years. I took this job very seriously and was always trying to lift up the team if they were down. I wouldn’t give up even if losing was inevitable because it killed my pride as well as the teams’. My brother had taught me never to give up on something if it means everything to you. I took his words of advice to heart because I watched him grow up all through high school and I admired his passion. Without him I would not be the same person.

Another factor that makes me the way I am was the size of my high school. It had approximately 350 kids in total which allowed me to explore many different activities. I am a very active person so I always wanted to be involved in everything that was offered in high school, including clubs, class officer, multiple sports, and the musical. In any other high school this probably would have been impossible, however because my school was very small, the advisors were always looking for people to participate in everything. As I have already mentioned, I am a very determined person. I take pride in everything I do, so if I joined a club or signed up to be an officer, I followed through and never backed down. I took on many projects and became the captain of my soccer team. I was overwhelmed a lot of the time, but I loved every second of it. I was always kept busy and always meeting new people that it didn’t even faze me that I had a lot of things to do. In any other school it is almost impossible to make these kinds of commitments because of the amount of people that are involved, however the size of my school was perfect. It allowed me to explore everything and see what I liked and what I didn’t. I was able to test the waters in anything I wanted to. I now have a broad list of interests and it is all because of the school I grew up at.

Also, I grew up in a suburban town with not a lot of diversity. My school consisted of 95% white kids, which, in a sense, sheltered me from the real world. Growing up in a school district with predominantly one race has affected my opinions of people who do not fit a certain description. To me they are outsiders and I am unfamiliar with them. I didn’t think that I was affected by this, however when I came to college I realized that by being in such a tiny town, I really did not get a feel for the rest of the world. It was almost as if I had a culture shock when I came here. The diversity is not very high at UMass, but compared to where I came from, it is a much different world. The lack of diversity has made me look at people differently. I tend to associate certain looking people as potential friends and not others. Whether they are conscious decisions or subconscious, I do not consider certain people familiar looking enough to become friends with them and ultimately will not approach them. If I were to grow up closer to New York City, however, I would be more accustomed to the diversity and my attitude toward this topic would be vastly different.

Along with where I grew up and how I was raised, being a girl has a lot to do with who I am as well. It is probably the biggest factor that shapes my personality. As a whole, society tells us that girls have to act a certain way. Girls should play with dolls, dress up nicely, and should never show any interest in violence. This was hard for me because like I said, I have an older brother and along with that, my cousins are primarily males as well. They were always involved in “boyish” things such as, adventures in the woods, video games, and shooting each other with fake guns. I always felt out of place when they came over because I was not allowed to participate. “I might get hurt” or “I might get upset because I would lose the game first.” Instead of participating in these games, my mom and aunt would play dolls with me or do my hair. I loved doing this but always wanted to be in on the action. Society tells us what we can and can not do and because I am a girl, I had to play the quiet games. I still managed to become an athlete, but I did form quickly to the “typical” girl. If I were male or lived in a different society, my life would have changed drastically. However this is who I am and my surroundings affected me greatly.

Ultimately, the individual is molded by his or her environment. My personal experiences in my environment have certainly made me who I am today. As a student at UMass my personality has determined my major and those around me. The people I have come to know around me have become some of my closest friends. Also, the people who influenced me most in elementary, middle and high school have all contributed to my passion for art and my curiosity of communications. These influences effect my present and future. If any of these contexts were different, my personality and attitude would be entirely different. I would not be me.

MegFon 23:42, 2 October 2006 (EDT)