Showing posts with label interests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interests. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Be Part of Research at UT Tyler You Say? Psychological Research!

Yes indeed students of The University of Texas at Tyler, if you ever wanted to be one of those cool test subjects you hear about in psychological studies, you can make it a reality here on campus! Our Psychology Department is a fantastic segment of campus that offers classes from Undergraduate all the way to Doctorates and minors in between!

I happen to be minoring in it myself. However, you don't have to be involved in the classroom in the Psychology department to participate in psychological surveys and occasionally even studies. When I was a Freshman, we had some basic classes where members from the school of psychology would pass out surveys and ask the class to fill them out. They aren't ever mandatory, so if brain studies and personal questions freak you out, no worries.

I chose to participate last year voluntarily in one of those surveys before I'd chosen to minor in the field, and based on my responses, I made a good candidate for a second level of testing that takes place in a lab here on campus. It's incredibly interesting, fun, and they will pay you for your time. (Quite well, I might add).

This semester I took my first Psychology class and I was required to participate in research for class credits as part of a grade (the alternative was a research essay). I did another survey for credit, and this time the Sass CPR Lab wanted me again for a different study and they wanted to study my brainwaves!! How cool is that?! So of course I agreed to participate. It was definitely something I felt was a once in a lifetime experience and I felt like I was helping groundbreaking research be done.

Here's a picture of me getting set up to do the study!

Another thing you can participate in, if you're interested in free counseling, is allowing psychology students practice their counseling skills on you. If you need serious help though, do consider visiting the Student Counseling Center, which is also free.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Ani-what-now? Anime & You!


Ani-What-now? Anime & You! 
PART 1 - An Introduction

[Disclaimer ~ Anime is a huge topic. HUGE! It is about as 'deep' as trying to explain the diversity in literature or novels. As such, this blog covered very, very broad strokes of content. I'd love to go more into some weirder shows like Hellsing, Berserk, Kenshin, or others, but for now this introduction is possibly the best entry point into the anime waters. Deeper subjects to follow? We'll see! ]

Pink Hair? Ninja? Must be anime ...
One of my favorite things in the world is "anime", Japanese animated programming that has subject content that ranges from being OK for young adult audiences all the way to R-Rated content. Much like our own American TV system, Japanese anime can cover topics from the adorable to the violent, it just depends on what you like and what you consider "worth watching". While the legal rights system which governs showing copyrighted TV content here at the University of Texas at Tyler has prevented out long-standing Anime Club from being able to show these titles, it does not keep this topic from being particularly popular and beloved by many UT Tyler students.

   While I think it might be worth covering Japanese anime in more depth across different blog posts, I think an "Introduction to Anime" post might be fun! I'll cover the genres anime can (broadly) cover, the opening animations/songs, and the difference between anime for TV, OVA ( Japan's answer to Direct-to-DVD shows ), and movies that appear in cinema.