Artifact #5: The Influence of Wealth on Alexander von Humboldt’s Success
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Focus: Integration, Experiential Learning, and Personalized Educational Program
Description: This paper is 1 of 4 that I wrote in the class. Each paper applied different sociological topics to convocations that I attended. This assignment in particular was about a man named Alexander von Humboldt and how successful he was in the biology field. I connected his success with the theory of Life Chances created by Max Weber. Weber believes that our life chances are a “person’s chances for achieving economic prosperity” (sources in reflective essay). A person’s life chances can be affected by how they grow up, the wealth of their parents, and circumstances in their life, all of which is not determined by the person at all. For Alexander von Humboldt, the affluent family he was born into helped him to be successful in life.
Reflection: When I took sociology as a sophomore, I was skeptical going into this class because I strongly felt that this was pointless, and I would not enjoy it at all. In Sociological Imagination, we discussed the issues with our system in the United States and how some issues, such as poverty are not caused by individual reasons, but by the system we live in. I did not believe this at all as a sophomore, I could see where Professor Brazill and the field of sociology was coming from, but I still did not see the system as being the problem as much as the individual themselves. This assignment helped me to understand that maybe poverty isn’t the fault of the individual all of the time.
Proficiencies: perspective-taking, self-awareness, evaluating theories
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Artifact #5: