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, I can argue that 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. Basically these characteristics contributed to my identity as a whole. Even though the smallest details are important, I have selected a few of the more general topics to discuss. These include, my gender, the small suburban area I grew up in and how it affects the way I look at people, 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 took care of me a lot. I saw how my dad interacted with him and I wanted the same relationship. This affected who I am now because I was, in a sense, forced to be athletic. My position was to learn how to act like a boy because that was who was around the most and my parents were in full swing with raising my brother at the time. 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, 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 that was who I was. I was affected by what my brother had taught me. I was the student in his eyes and if taking risks were fun for him, I enjoyed them too. 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. These awards helped to keep me interested in everything I did because of my competitive nature. 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 and result in a negative outcome. When I began playing soccer, my mindset was the same. I was always fighting and striving to succeed. His actions had molded me into who I am. I can now identify myself as someone who puts a lot of pressure on their self because of their absolute need 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 to never give up on something if it means everything to me. I can argue that this statement makes me who I am because it made me determined and passionate. Without comments such as this one, my personality would be warped into something different. 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 identify myself as 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. By going to this small school, I can now identify myself as having a broad list of interests. It affects what I can and can not participate in at college and for the rest of my life.

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. I felt like I was put into a position where I was a child again and needed to learn about the many different type of people in the world. I was a student, but not just in class, in life.

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. I think that if I were to grow up closer to New York City, I would be more accustomed to the diversity and my attitude toward this topic would be vastly different. This is because I would always be exposed to diversity and wouldn’t feel threatened by a “different” person. I feel that in the long run I could see this part of myself changing because I will get accustomed to my life here, however because I will always go back to where I grew up, it will be a long time until this aspect of me changes.

Along with where I grew up and how I was raised, being a girl has a lot to do with my identity 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. These comments that were made by my mother, forced me to think of girls as completely different species. I was taught that girls were very different, so during elementary school I never took on a liking to other boys, besides my brother. I was forced into a position that I couldn’t help. It was just how I was raised in society. 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 could possibly have changed. However this is who I am and I don’t think that this aspect is unchangeable. Being a girl is permanent and it is almost impossible to get away from it. To change my outlook on girls and guys is not possible in the society we live in. 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 individuality has determined my major and those around me. The people I have come to know around me have become some of my closest friends. 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 14:30, 10 October 2006 (EDT)