My Physiology Major

Below I'm going to discuss questions pertaining to my field of study.

Le Corps Humainet Grandeur Naturelle. Bougle, Julien.  Paris, J. Bailletare 1899 

1. What do students in my program learn how to do?
Physiology is the study of how the body works. How organs, cells, tissues, etc., all function. In my program students gain expertise in many systems of the body. This field of study is built for students looking to pursue further schooling in the medical field. We learn about the basic workings of the body and go off on to more specific school to establish a career out of it.

2. What do people who get degrees in this field usually go on to do for work?
There's plenty of options for physiology majors if you include the additional schooling after undergraduate. The career options are almost endless really. A physiology base allows the individual to pursue almost any career in the medical field. This includes physical therapy, dietician/nutritionist, epidemiology, healthcare, the list goes on.

3. What drew me to this field?
I've been interested in the health and the body since freshman year of high school. During my junior year of high school I got a really bizarre injury during my soccer season. This required me to see a physical therapist three times a week. After seeing the work physical therapists do and all the aspects of the job I was immediately drawn to it. I loved the idea of getting to know all of my patients on a personal level and being able to fix them at the same time. It also helps that I'm interested in the body already and love being on my feet all day.

4. Who are the leaders/most exciting people involved in your field right now? Why? 
After a bit of research, I found that one of the most influential and trusted people in the medical field right now is Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay is a skilled neurosurgeon, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine, and an associate chief of the neurosurgery service at a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. If this doesn't convince you of his title of most exciting person in physiology, he also hosts his own section on CNN about health-related topics where he talks about topics from medicinal marijuana to "heart-attack proof you". He also happens to be the chief medical correspondent for the network. So basically, there's nothing about the human body Gupta doesn't know about. 

5. What are the leading academic/scholarly journals in your field? Where are they published? 
A lot of scholarly journals are found here. The three that pertain most to my field of study are Discovering Human Physiology, Anatomy of a Physiology Major, and Transforming Medicine Through Physiology.

Reflection
I observed two of my classmates blog posts about their particular. Both of which were pretty similar to mine if not exactly mine. Both Alyssa's blog and Kelly's blog were informative and exciting for me because, like me, they both want to pursue careers in the medical field. Alyssa would like to be a neonatal nurse and Kelly would like to major in physiology and become a physical therapist like me. Both of these career paths made me realize that achieving our goals is going to be a lot of hard work. There will be many late nights and fried brains, but because we are so passionate about what we want to do it is more than possible.

My Thoughts on Comments

In this post I will be discussing comments I consider to have credibility and comments that lack credibility on a controversy regarding the Fitbit. Although this article takes a different approach to why Fitbits take the wrong approach to achieving health, it still gets the point across.

I'm going to begin with comments that I feel do not have credibility.

I chose Lisa's comment because it's obvious she has made assumptions about radiation from technology. She also veered off topic from the other content of the article and only focused on the section of EMF radiation of the article which could be inaccurate in the first place. She seems to be expressing a fear of radiation and is looking for some information that will confirm her fear even if it is inaccurate.

I saw Jolene's comment as lacking credibility because she has created a fantasy that her Fitbit is the cause of her menstrual abnormalities. She describes that she is a 47 year old woman. To me, her symptoms sound like those of menopause and I believe she might be a bit in denial. It is clear that she is seeking out something to blame her aging on. 

Comments I found credible were ones where it was obvious the commenter had done research on the topic. 

John made his knowledge on the subject quite clear. He shows no signs of fear or fantasy and is simply stating the obvious issue with the article. He shows no bias towards or against the Fitbit but instead is stating his knowledge on electromagnetic fields.

I decided that Kathy's comment deserved credibility because she states that she has done research on the product and has personal experience. She does show some wishes and fantasies about the item but I don't believe it has any effect on her opinion on her fitness band yet. 

Reflection

I have reviewed posts on Savannah's blog and Nick's blog regarding comments credibility on an article they discussed. I found that they had a similar strategy to finding comments that they thought possessed credibility and ones that lacked it. For both blogs, they chose comments that showed an unbiased statement of facts related to the controversy. Another indication of credible comments is expression of personal experience. Comments that lacked credibility were very opinionated and more often than not incorrect. From reading my peers blog posts I learned how to pick and chose comments to represent credibility. 

My Controversy

Below I'm going to discuss an article on a controversy from 2015 that interests me.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/05/the-dark-side-of-your-fitbit-and-fitness-app.html

I'm sure we're all very aware of the crazy health fads that have been going around recently. Everyone is constantly looking for new ways to make the scale go down. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people trying to become a healthier version of themselves. In fact, I really encourage it. What I have an issue with is the trendy shortcuts people try to take to change their habits and bodies, Fitbit and fitness apps being a main concern. 

The article I found discusses how instead of listening to our bodies to determine what methods we should use to become healthier, we have started to rely on technology to do so. What people don't realize is the amount of factors these apps and bands do not take into account about your overall health. It gives them a false sense of wellness. 

One major flaw with this technology is the fact that it counts every calorie as equal. For example, it counts 400 calories of a cheeseburger as equal to 400 calories of a large fruit smoothie  This could not be farther from reality. Obviously, the cheeseburger and the fruit smoothie have very different nutritional values, but to the app, as long as the foods consumed stays within the daily calorie intake range, anything is fair game. The truth is the amount of calories in food are not nearly as important as the macro and micronutrients that lie within the calories. 

I have always been interested in health and nutrition. I do go out of my way to consistently eat a healthy diet and nourish my body correctly. This means daily, hearty meals that meet my bodies nutritional needs. As a young woman in today's society, it's a little difficult not to fall victim to the fitness crazes. I have come to find, though, that becoming in shape by taking the right steps and truly listening to my body has been much more satisfying. This being said, 

Calendar Reflection

This post is going to briefly discuss my weekly schedule.

While planning my weekly schedule, I decided to do most of my obligations in the morning rather than the evening to leave myself some free time at the end of my day. This also allows me to move some things around from day to day if need be.

 I have an average of three classes a day with about an hour and a half to two hour break on most days. I'll most likely fill my time after classes with homework from other classes.

I made sure to get a workout in after my morning classes to clear my head and keep me sane, really. Also, my sorority house provides me with lunch and dinner Monday-Friday from 11-1 and 5-6 so I like to make time to go there between classes for a small break in my day.

I planned my English homework time mostly for weekends with an exception of an hour on Tuesday and Thursday right after class. I did this so it would still be fresh in my mind and I'd most likely get my best work done then. Other than that I plan on putting two hours in on Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

Reflection
After reading Brandon's blog and Savannah's blog I realized that making time to do everything you need to is definitely possible. Like me, Savannah is balancing her schoolwork (which is much more vigorous than mine) and sorority life. It made me feel much more comfortable with my amount of responsibilities. Brandon's post gave me some ideas on how to improve my calendar. I liked his idea of multitasking between breaks to get more done as the day goes on.

My Writing Process

Below I'm going to discuss my past and present writing techniques.

1. I consider myself to be most like a sequential composer. I'm definitely not a heavy planner and have never been enough of a procrastinator to consider myself part of the category. I start things enough in advance most of the time and don't frequently find myself struggling with time.

2. I would say my writing style is about 70% sequential composer and 30% revisor. It all depends on the topic and time frame of the assignment. If it's a topic I'm really interested and want to do the best I can I will revise more than usual, so it varies.

3. I believe my writing style has been pretty successful so far. It only fails when I get writers block and can't begin writing. In that case I won't be as sequential and I'll skip around and begin my body paragraphs before anything else and this seems to work out pretty well for me also. When I do begin my writing in order with a clear structure in mind my writing seems to flow well and I get a lot done at a time.

4. It could be beneficial to try a new writing style. My current technique hasn't failed me yet but I know there is room for improvement. I'm not confident that trying new writing styles would be very successful because I'm so comfortable working the way that I have. If I did try something new it would take me time to master it.

"Williams Bay, Wisconsin 042" by Gepard12 - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Williams_Bay,_Wisconsin_042.jpg#/media/File:Williams_Bay,_Wisconsin_042.jpg

I also learned quite a lot about my peers writing styles by reading and commenting on Jayni's blog and Emma's blog. Reading these posts made me realize a few things. One, I'm not alone in my techniques and feeling a bit weird about not having a concrete writing style; and two, that I can learn a lot about writing from my peers and borrow some of their techniques to make me a better writer. From Jayni's blog, I picked up the use of an outline as a useful skill I'll probably use in the near future. Because we both consider ourselves sequential composers that have trouble initially starting our writing, an outline helps to keep us on topic and allows us to jump from place to place without confusion. Emma's blog inspired me to get excited about every piece I write. I could see her passion for writing in her posts and it inspired me to get excited about everything I'll have to write. I can see that her passion is something that makes her such a good writer.