As a Public Relations major sociology is beneficial to me because you work with a variety clientele on various projects all from various locations and backgrounds of life. These groups of people are very diverse, across races, religious beliefs, genders and disabilities. Sociology teaches you to drop the stigmas and how to approach unique matters on a micro and macro level. When you’re looking through a sociological lens, you will realize how to be tactful in handling press releases, social media and when handling people in general. Most public relations jobs are extremely culturally diverse since you could be working with global customers you’ll need an understanding of their traditions and the social norms within their country as well. You will see sociology being beneficial in how one group of people may be affected more than another group based on how you handle things. Ultimately your approach could unintentionally exclude or upset a group of people that you are trying to help.

 Sociology teaches us that even if we don't believe we aren’t being discriminatory we may be subconsciously or that we could be participating in institutionalized racism or have advantages based on our skin color or economic standing that we may be oblivious too compared to someone else. By taking a Sociology class, you can enhance your critical thinking skills and put into practice an approach that will benefit a variety of people long term. It teaches you how to articulate your message in a well-thought-out manner while listening and trying to understand the culture, diversity, and message of the clients you will be working with. It teaches us that if we do have a benefit over someone else we can be a voice to advocate for the changes and justices that are more balanced for them. Public relations often involve various causes meant to balance equality and help those who need it. It allows us to utilize the diversity we have in our world and teaches us to appreciate one another for these differences.

 As far as my personal life I’m finding myself thinking about things in even more ways than I did previously. I’m a self-proclaimed overthinker so for me to say that I’m thinking even more about topics that I once didn’t is “different” for me. Sociology even has me breaking down the meaning behind billboards, television shows, and even songs I once enjoyed I’m finding myself more critical of. I connected to a lot of the topics this semester but the two I most connected to where the social deviance project and gender chapters. The social deviance simply because I am “random”. Things others don’t consider normal I may do anyways just to see how people respond or to see if I can make someone smile. I’ve known first hand what it’s liked to be judged on my appearance or standing up for things when others haven’t, even if it means standing alone.

If you are planning on taking sociology go into the course open-minded. Prepare to discuss controversial topics. Prepare to have your ideas and beliefs tested. Because you’ll be looking at things through a unique lens. You will be challenged, even if you consider yourself an open-minded person, you may not be as much as you thought. You’ll learn views and theories you may never have considered before and be forced to self-evaluate your own behaviors and thoughts at times. My personal experience will caution you not to take Global History 1500 to present day at the same time. The topics combined although complimentary made it very emotionally draining. It left me depressed frequently due to the nature of the topics. I also felt it made it a bit more challenging in the regard to how I was able to view certain chapters compared to other students because I was beginning to merge what I was learning about history into class.

The positive side to that is that it allowed to me to realize in what ways we really have progressed through history and areas that as a society we still are struggling with presently. There are some fun parts too, so don’t let me scare you away! The social norm breaching project was my favorite part!

When you hear the term social class you probably think of lower, middle and upper class. They have become the common indicators of where we fall within a society based on our wealth and income. Nowadays there are several models and categories to assign someone's social class position. I choose to utilize the Gilbert-Kahl Model since it shows the occupations that usually rank there, approximate wealth and roughly what percent of the population fits in each category. But, there’s much more to how sociologists evaluate the differences in social classes.

Defining the difference between wealth and income

Let’s define the difference between wealth and income since they help differentiate between inequalities amongst some of the social classes.Although they work aside each other they are different.Income doesn’t yield a return the way wealth does.You can have income and little to no wealth but in most cases, you can’t have wealth without a decent income to obtain it. It also is one way the wealthy are able to stay wealthy as investments yield return and can continue to grow.The wealthy tend to spend less and invest more while the income of other classes tends to be spent getting buy and surviving with little ability to move ahead.

Wealth is a person's net worth overall including all assets minus any of their liabilities and owed debts. Wealth is built up generally over a certain time frame, generally the course of one's lifetime. This includes savings, investment accounts, stocks, bonds, and property including your house, land, and vehicle.

Income, on the other hand, is more immediate. This is what’s earned for profit. It can come in the form of wages from a job, government assistance, or rental properties. It is more “free-flowing” and continually moving, it can, however, last for a short time rather than continual. Examples of this can be seen with job loss and more debt then income scenarios. 

Social Stratification exists in many societies and has all throughout history. The difference, however, was based on the social characteristics of that society and wealth was variable by different forms of hierarchy systems. The effects of these rankings today can be seen in a wide variety of ways. These system rankings placed on us by society sets us up for different life chances from the beginning.

The wealthy often have access to better schools, health care, tend to live longer and children tend to have higher wealth like the family they were raised in. Lower class and poverty-stricken families, however, don’t have access to great schools, may not have access to health care at all, don’t live as long and often are associated with higher crime rates. 

Learning about social control and deviance was my favorite section of class this semester!

First I want to go over some helpful key terms:

Social deviance = is anything outside social norms. These are rules we know we should abide by and generally do as part of normal behavior. Items like not committing murder or sneezing and making sure to cover your nose and mouth.

Informal deviance: Fractions committed that aren’t punishable by law but they are “just wrong”. These are actions that will warrant stares, glares, maybe comments or rude gestures if someone would see you commit the offense. A great example is leaving a bathroom without washing your hands or sampling grapes at the grocery store while shopping for produce.

Formal Deviance: Crimes that are punishable by societal standards and often written in the law.

Deviance is a broad term and consist of a wide range of beliefs that as a society we may see differently from each other on an individual level. Or we may see broader on a macro level in an event like geography. But overall there are common connections.

Most of these deviances will offer you a different reaction that’s “punishable” and can be seen differently based on an area your located. Rules can change and will vary. Normally murder is a bad thing but what if it’s committed in the act of self defense or saving a group of other people? Is the person who committed the murderer still seen as badly if he did it to save many others? What if he committed the crime after an argument with the person he killed and simply had one too many drinks beforehand? As you can see in my example the situation changed affecting the outcome. Society has placed stipulations and these views on us and even if it’s a disapproving glance we will often modify our behaviors to conform and not be seen a certain way that's associated as “negative” or wrong.

Hello Everyone! 

This semester I choose to take a sociology course. As part of our final project for class, we are supposed to create a Tumblr account showcasing topics we discussed. So, I’ll be sharing my journey and take on what I learned and who knows maybe I’ll keep this account and continue to post in the future once this assignment is complete. I am currently a public relations/communications major but human behavior is something that has always attracted my interest. I’ve always been one to ask the why’s, what’s and have you thought about it this way type of questions. I can’t wait to share my thoughts with you all and hope you stick around.