Tis the Season to Love?

It is that special time of the year where people fall in love during the cold days in winter, grab a bite to eat at a local coffee shop, and maybe sneak a kiss under some mistletoe. Question we should ask ourselves is that really love? In our society, we tend to see more people get married at a younger age and get divorced at a younger age, as well. Why is it that we tend to fall for someone so fast? Were we even in love in the first place? Or maybe how does society portray love to be like? Perhaps maybe it was all about the lust of it all, never really love. For many people, it is hard to find that special someone that you fall in love with; and for many young folks still in college, that is probably the last thing that they are thinking of. When that time comes to find that special someone, how do you know if that love is “real”? In the article “Is it love or lust? ”, the writer talks about looking at the ideas of love and lust in perspectives to help readers differentiate the two ideas.

 

 “ There are different emotional and physiological components to both love and lust. Romantic attraction and feelings of love for someone elevates our dopamine and serotonin levels, which causes feelings of elation and loss of appetite. When we get to the point of feeling attachment and a more long-term phase of love, our bodies generate more oxytocin (known as the "hormone of love"). Lust, sex drive and an appetite for sex can visit during this process and is generated by increased testosterone levels in both men and women. Heightened levels of testosterone inspire a feeling of focused attention and sexual arousal.”

This article also talks about the idea of infidelity and why men and women do it. To put it in a biological perspective, it seems to be similar reason to why animals have multiple mating partners, which is basically the idea of survival of the fittest. When a man, or woman, have more than one partner, he or she has a chance to have more genetic diversity with their DNA. But of course, I am sure for many people who have cheated are most likely not thinking that. There are probably other reasons for people cheating like loneliness, domestic violence, etc.

When we are with our significant other, have you ever thought about what brought you two together in the first place? Was it how attractive one was to the other? Maybe the idea about how if you are with your significant other for a long time that the looks fades away and the personality seems to stand out more. When it comes to lust, we can think about short-term relationships or about marriages that do not work out in the end. In the state of California, the divorce rate is about 75%.

Some Advice from the Professional

Have you ever wondered about if a certain career path is the right one for you? Or have you ever questioned yourself why you chose a certain career path? From what I hear from my friends and classmates, they choose to have certain career paths because of the salary and who will offer them a job first. Personally for me, it will effectively drive people to go into certain career paths for the wrong reasons. My personal reasons for going into the medical fields help motivate me into becoming a doctor. Now, many of you reading this may think “Wow, that is going to a long road ahead to finishing school”. Yes, I would agree, but if you think about it realistically, will this path ultimately make me happy in the end? My answer is yes. Just like everyone who is struggling to finish school, I, too, want to get out of school as soon as I can, but there is nothing I can do about getting my classes. It is technically out of my control whether or not I am able to get the classes I need. Otherwise, I would be on track to graduating next semester.

If I am truly passionate about my career choice of becoming a doctor, specifically a naturopathic doctor, then I have to be able to set certain checkpoints in order to be successful. With this kind of economy we live in today, everyone in the real world say people that are in school right now are lucky to be there. I would concur with that statement, but in a sense, those people are right in some ways. If we want to have a job that we will be satisfied with in the long run, it is better to continue our education rather than rushing out of school with a typical office job sitting in a cubicle eight hours a day. My advice for people who are serious about pursuing their career in the medical field, I would hope you are doing this for the right reasons besides money.

Unfortunately, I wish I was graduating on time, but I just have to take it as is and just go day by day. For those who are thinking about being a doctor or nurse, I would definitely say DO NOT DECLARE YOUR MAJOR AS A NURSING if you are attending a state school. Intially, the career path I wanted to pursue was becoming a nurse. Nursing programs are heavily impacted and very high demanding, so I would suggest taking an alternative route by choosing a different major. Realistically, there is not only one-way to get to something in life. There are many alternatives. For me, I have decided to declare my major in Biology with a concentration of Physiology.  I figured that if I wanted to be a nurse, I was not going to wait 5 years to apply for the program when I can be doing something more productive, such as volunteering at the hospital or applying for internships.  As in my previous post, I talk about becoming a doctor, which what I truly wanted to be. There are millions of people who want to be nurses, but how many people want to become doctors? Do people want to take that extra step to get to that next level in the medical field?

I know for most people, people do not want to become doctors because it is a very stressful job. I do agree it is stressful, but like I said earlier, if that is the career you want to pursue, go for it! If you decided to declare your major in physiology, I would definitely make sure that the science classes you have to take for your major are also in the same category as your general education requirements. This is a good way to kill two birds with one stone! A lot of classes you will have to take are mostly biology and chemistry courses. Some classes include introduction to biology 1&2, general chemistry 1&2, organic chemistry 1&2, anatomy classes, etc. If you would like to check out more courses for my school, you can check out the  SFSU bulletin (road map). For every year, the bulletin changes, so this link is to the bulletin of 2012-2013.

When you are ready to apply for medical school, it definitely depends on what doctor you want to specialize in. Unfortunately, naturopathic medicine is not as popular right now, and the only way if I would want to practice naturopathic medicine is if I get my license out of state. What I did to find this out was to search and call a local naturopathic clinic and find out some information about what is required for schooling. Since I live in the East Bay, a place I called was Tara Natural Medicine clinic located in Lafayette and Oakland. The people who work in the clinic were very nice and informative about naturopathic medicine career paths. I talked to a woman named Gabriella, and she suggested some schools that I am able to get my license in order to practice this type of medicine here in California. A couple of states she mentioned were Washington and Oregon. I am surprised those are the only two places to get your license, but I will do more research on that in the near future.

For those who are reading this and are in another state or country, I would also suggest by signing up some of the pre-med programs and meetings they have at your school. I get emails telling me about certain representatives from different schools that will be going to my campus, and this is a great way to start thinking about what medical school to go to. Last week, I got an email that a representative from University of South Florida was going to be on campus, and I was glad I went because it opened my mind about medical schools that I can possibly go to on the East Coast. I know everyone have different approaches to doing research on schools, but I hope this helps people who are stuck to what steps to take next going into the medical field.

Discovery of Human Sexuality Studies

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This would be my fourth year attending San Francisco State University; and so far, most classes have been for my major but also some of them are for my personal interest. A lot of times, I feel that there is not a point to taking certain classes, especially if you are not personally interested in it.  Since most colleges are overly impacted and are cutting the classes students need, it leads to students to taking classes that are not necessary and delay the time they graduate. Just like everything in life, there are always pros and cons to taking classes that do not pertain to your major. If you look at it through an optimist's perspective, it gives students more knowledge about certain subjects they were not initially aware of before. When students have more knowledge about things that interest them, it gives them a chance to explore the world based on what they learned in class and apply it to the real world that potentially can lead to more opportunities to their career. 

Having to deal with impacted classes at SF State, I had no idea what classes to take. Just like a majority of students, we all just want to get out school as soon as we can; so we can either try to start new careers or continue to go to school. As I was trying to search for classes to take during my second fall semester, I thought to myself, what classes can I take that will benefit me to pursue my career goal but was also had interest in? Searching for hours and hours for classes online, I finally encountered a class that sounded interesting to me. The class that I found was a human sexualities class called “Sex and Relationships”. At first, I assumed that the title of the class was the main ideas talked about in class. It turns out it was not just about the “sex” or exclusively on “relationships” but how to maintain relationships and why some people’s relationships fail or succeed based on certain statistics studied. Towards the end of the semester, I really enjoyed the class, and wanted to see if there were similar classes.

Spring semester comes along and I find out that the sex and relationship class counted towards one of my general education requirements, so I decided to see what other human sexualities courses I could take. When it was time for me to register for classes, I luckily found two more human sexuality classes that will help me finish a huge part of my general education requirements. The two classes I took were called “Variations of Human Sexualities” and “Human Sexualities”. Both classes, we learn the evolutionary perspectives of certain behaviors and also the social perspectives of sexual orientation, gender identity, and how all those aspects play a role in different cultures (or societies depending on what part of the world you are looking at). After I was done with the semester, I was disappointed that I was not taking more human sexualities classes. I think the main reason why I was so intrigued with these courses was because of the how the professors taught the course. The human sexualities studies program has professors who are very passionate and know how to explain certain concepts very well, so that students are able to understand the material.

I believe that the reasons classes are interesting because of who teaches the course. If a student takes a course that interesting because of the topic but finds out that the professor is not great, then that will make the student less motivated to go to class. I personally had a few of those kinds of classes for my general education requirements, such as  history and critical thinking.The professors that teach these course made me not interested in taking these kinds of courses again. The professors were monotonic, boring, and fell asleep in almost every lecture. It sucked because I chose the class because the topic seemed interesting, but if you have professors who are not as motivated as you to teach the material to you, then it is wasting your time and energy to even strive to get a good grade in the class.

People always say things happen for a reason, whether it is good or bad. A lot of the courses that I have taken were a lot of eye openers for me to seek out new opportunities that I would have never thought of; however, for some courses, it made me realize to never take those kinds of classes again because I realized those topics did not really interest me. For all the human sexuality classes I have taken in the last few years had made me realize I want to continue studying it and that is the main reason why I decided to minor in human sexuality studies.In the end, I found something that will help benefit my career goals by not only looking at just physiological perspective, but now I have another study that can focus on how people develop their idenitiy.