Final Blog Post LP's-11, 12, 13

Semester Review
Wow it's the end of the semester already! I will have to say I really enjoyed this class, but I won't lie I am glad I will have some of my summer back before the fall semester. The best parts of this class is that we got to do projects and not just all reading out of the book and discussion boards. I also did enjoy writing these blog posts. I think it is a good way to express our thoughts and share what we have learned. I like how we had short quizes every few LP's I think it was easier and less overwhelming. The parts I liked the least was having to do the group projects online. It was hard to get everyone together to work on it. I think if the groups were smaller or everyone did their own I think would make this online class easier. I pretty much found everything I learned interesting. The things I found most interesting that I have learned over the semester were about infants and younger school age children. I think it was most interesting because I knew very little about them, but adulthood etc. is interesting because I now I understand myself better now and know what to expect in the future. It really surprised me how smart children are at such a young age. I enjoyed the video about language development, and how infants can distinguish different sounds when words are spoken. I now can apply what I have learned to my life like that my teenage cousin Dalton has the same feelings as every other teenage boy or girl, which I learned from the radio interview. Or that when I go through menopause it won't be as traumatizing as it is made out to be. The toughest things to learn were all the different theories like Kholberg's stages of moral development.

LP's 11, 12, 13
I liked ch 11 about about emerging adulthood because I am in this age group right now and it is relateable for me right now. I can relate to some of the 5 key factors of emerging adulthood. the two I most relate with are identity exploration. The book's example is in love and work and for me right now I have two careers narrowed down but am still exploring my options. The other is feeling in between. At times I do feel like I am an adult, but at times since I am only 19 I don't feel like it because I don't have a full time job, my own home etc. What I found surprising is when they talked about creativity. It says early adulthood is a great time for creativity and that 80% of creative products were created by people age 50. To me I would think a person would be more creative when they are younger. I guess maybe I think this because I always think of how children seem to be more imaginative and creative than adults.

I think ch 12 was interesting because of all the different types of love. I had learned about this in Psychology of Human Relations, but it still fascinates me, because before this I though love was love. I mean obviously you feel a different kind of love for your family and friends than you would a husband/boyfriend or wife/girlfriend. In the chapter they talked about rapport talk and report talk. It stated that women tend to like rapport talk and men report talk. For being a woman I can say I can agree with that and I would say I want to have a connection and a relationship with someone if I am talking about something important with someone so I know they have an understanding of what I am feeling. I am glad to hear that the number of people who say their marriages are "very happy" is increasing, because it seems that everyone is getting divorced these days and if they get married it doesn't last long.

Ch 13 was good because I have grandparents in this age group, so I can see it happening. A lot of the signs about aging like height and weight, strength, joints, and bones, and hearing and eye sight didn't really surprise me. I think it is your standard things you think of in aging adults. It also didn't shock me that the top two causes of death for middle adults was heart disease and cancer. My great-grandfathers were older than this age group when they passes away, but two died from heart problems and the other cancer well and probably old age.

That's all folks!

Thank you steve for being understanding of all the problems I had throughout the semester. Thank you to my group members who actually participated and pulled through to help with the group projects, even though I know you are way more busy than me. Hope to meet some of you in person this fall. :-)

***Amber Schmidt***