The Sociological Imagination and Personal Application
- Submitted by: FoxAnime
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- Date Submitted: 01/24/2011 02:00 PM
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As I understand it, the sociological imagination is when an individual takes their individual problems, choices, and career and then takes their knowledge of the world and mentally realizes that they’re an individual in a flow of individuals in the same situation and circumstances as they are. Dumbed down, simply you figure out you’re not the only one going through what you’re going through and you’re part of a larger picture. To create a mental picture, you’re looking at a painting done in pointillism and you’re able to appreciate the big picture, but see the individual dots and their place in the picture and why they’re there.
If I were going to apply it to myself, first I’ll have to attach some labels and categories to myself so I can lump myself with a majority. I’m a second year college student who’s running low on money, misses her family, is trying to pass her classes, and trying to run a social life both online and in real life. Now, using my sociological imagination, I expand my normal mental thinking process and realize that a lot of the second year students here at BYU-Idaho, and more than likely other colleges, are probably feeling and acting in exactly the same way that I am, probably even making the same exact choices. It’s slightly mind-blowing to think of someone somewhere else in the same hemisphere or country or state, maybe even the same college, is using the exact same thought process as I am, coming to the same conclusions, and making the same decisions. That’s when social imagination really starts to hit.
On my level, it brings to attention the thousands and thousands of college students like myself facing the exact same problems. On one hand, I’m interested enough that I’d want to search out these other students just like me, ask them questions, find out if it’s really true that they’re like me. That’s the sociologist part of me I suppose. On the other, I’m totally disinterested in finding them because, even if we found each...
If I were going to apply it to myself, first I’ll have to attach some labels and categories to myself so I can lump myself with a majority. I’m a second year college student who’s running low on money, misses her family, is trying to pass her classes, and trying to run a social life both online and in real life. Now, using my sociological imagination, I expand my normal mental thinking process and realize that a lot of the second year students here at BYU-Idaho, and more than likely other colleges, are probably feeling and acting in exactly the same way that I am, probably even making the same exact choices. It’s slightly mind-blowing to think of someone somewhere else in the same hemisphere or country or state, maybe even the same college, is using the exact same thought process as I am, coming to the same conclusions, and making the same decisions. That’s when social imagination really starts to hit.
On my level, it brings to attention the thousands and thousands of college students like myself facing the exact same problems. On one hand, I’m interested enough that I’d want to search out these other students just like me, ask them questions, find out if it’s really true that they’re like me. That’s the sociologist part of me I suppose. On the other, I’m totally disinterested in finding them because, even if we found each...