Sociology 264: Death and Dying
Relation to GC Focus: This class focused on illuminating more nonphysical factors that influence medicine, including socioeconomic status, socially constructed biases, cultural beliefs, and mental health. This class was a service learning course to facilitate experiential learning. As someone who desires to engineer better medicines, these factors need to be included in the design process to ever make maximal impacts amongst your target population. Additionally, ethics were rigorously discussed. This is valuable to me because ethical considerations are highly valued in medicine yet not always emphasized as much in the research realm, even though it ought to be.
Hours: 150 (as student) and 45 (as TA/Discussion Facilitator)
Psychology 103: Developmental
Relation to GC Focus: This course walked through developmental stages ranging from infancy to adolescence from a psychological perspective. The course emphasized why and how norms and morals arise as an innate element of humanity and how they affect our behavior. By understanding the biological, behavioral, psychological perspectives behind what motivates society to more-or-less operate as a unit is valuable in elucidating and then catering to specific medical needs of society.
Hours: 150
English 254: Medieval religions in Film and Fiction
Relation to GC Focus: This class takes a look at how pop culture and entertainment can influence how we see reality. Although the topic was related to medieval religion and fantasy, the class took a very evidentiary and analytical approach to exploring the influence of media on society’s perception of history; with media becoming an ever-present entity in society today, tracking its increasing influence in society is related to the practice of medicine. For example, the pandemic demonstrated how powerful media could be.
Hours: 150
Joanna Peng E-Portfolio. 