3. TEENAGE SUICIDE... it doesn't have to end like this

The article Teenage Wasteland brings up a very sensitive topic based upon young individual’s problems which certainly become a society’s issue when it comes to teenage suicide. Donna Ganies highlighted teenage suicides in her article.

On 11/03/1987 four teenager’s ages between 16-19, found dead in a car due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Nobody dug deeper in the issue why these four young people committed suicide; instead they call these young people with different names. Teenager’s brain is still not completely developed to get a better understanding of societies good or bad influences, scientists prove that an individual’s brain is fully developed at the age of 25. So, it’s hard for a teenager to take all of the pressure and burden society and their peers throw at them while their brain is still developing. Author excerpt in her article that, In America teenage suicides was a virtually nonexistent category prior to 1960 and during 1950 to 1980 it was tripled. Most of the suicides happened at the age of 15-24 between teenage to youth. These suicides happens because of social stigma, drugs, car crashed (DWI). The reason behind every suicide is use of drugs and alcohol, because the teenagers are not mature enough to deal with their social problems weather they are in their families or either outside. Suicide became more common in white kids than black. Suicides usually happen in lower middle class and upper class. The reason because of extreme poverty and in upper class it is because of social issues, drugs and alcohol. These two extreme class differences explain the reason with in itself.

We never pay close attention to the reason why suicide is common among teenager, bullying is one of the main cause of suicide in teenagers. Poverty also plays a major role in suicide attempt; children who are not being able to keep up with their peers, they get heartbroken, disturbed. The pressure built gradually and it affects them psychologically.
our society like’s to label people without even knowing the facts, without even putting own self in their shoes, just like in the article when people labeled those four teenagers with different names instead of taking the issue seriously and thinking about what made those teenager do something as extreme as suicide, why they stood outside the norm and took that step. It all comes to culture and society we move in, in the end it is the societies who make people do that.

The story of these teenagers reminds me of a personal story which I can never forget. My friend she committed suicide at the age of 13, because she was obese. Her sickness lead to obesity, she couldn’t work out because she had major arthritis but people at school called her names all the kids at school used to laugh at her. She secretly stopped taking her medication which intensified her sickness and she died. I can’t forget her ever she was a bright student she didn’t harm anyone but people didn’t like her just because she was different and a bit older than her classmates. Sometimes you don’t realize that your hatred could lead someone to take their life.

Suicide is becoming a major issue nowadays more and more people are trying to take this path thinking as if it’s the easy way out. In this article Donna also describes some figures of suicides around the world. In Guyana 1978, where over 900 followers of Jim Jones poisoned themselves, fearing that their community would be destroyed. This issue of suicide does not only concern a nation this is an international problem which needs to be taken much more seriously.

2. Surveys & it's impotance

Mr. Schuman’s article “sense and nonsense of surveys” is based upon the details of how the surveys are conducted and what is the method and techniques researchers use, and how they should collect a data on surveys to enhance the accuracy. Schuman talks about the sociological methods used in collecting surveys. This article certainly relates to chapter 2 “understanding the research process”. Understanding the research process emphases on the different research process such as; how the data is collected and analyzed through the use of surveys; identifying and understanding patterns in social life; gathering empirical evidence. These are few of the research type explained in the chapter.
Research plays a vast role in the study of sociology, because sociology itself is a study of structure and function of human society. In order to study sociology and obtain the data research is the first step that is needed to be taken. After doing the research it is important to provide the details for better understanding of the process and the research. Schuman says in his article that understanding the surveys are critical I agree with that because sometimes surveys don’t really provide the guidelines in which they should state the facts and the process of the survey in order to make people understand a survey better. A common person needs to know about the basics of how and why the survey was conducted. Also he talked about the media who sometimes reports the survey without explaining how to read between the lines. Generating the survey properly and providing some guidelines to common people can really help the process and benefit the surveys; because not everyone understands the process and a lot of people don’t know the reason why any type of survey was conducted, so people sometimes don’t take the surveys serious. To help people understand the survey better researchers must provide the details, providing authentic information could help people to trust the survey polls and recognize its importance.
Surveys are important to form a better form of society, it help to measure the flows and gives society the ability to think critically.

1. All About Me

My name is Erum.  I have come from a very strong culture. When I was a kid I never liked changes but I had to go against my will, I moved to U.S with my family almost over a decade ago. That move changed my life drastically. I begin to learn a different culture, people and a different way of living life.
Nature and people who think differently has a major influence in my life. My grandfather was my role model when I was growing up because he used to take things differently, since then I thought I will try to be like him. With that interestin my mind, I grew the passion to learn psychology and I set my mind to study psychology professionally. I want to become a psychologist because I want to learn more about people and what makes them different from one another. And help the ones who need help to get on the right track. This is one of my goals in life to become a psychologist and help/learn people and life more closely.
My grandfather use to tell me that there are always two sides of everything one is from which you see it, second is the reality that is hidden within that context you just need to have a closer look at it. As a child I did not really understood that but later in life I began to understand his words especially when I moved from my country to U.S.  The very basic example was when I was moving here people were telling me my life would be good and there are people who envy that. But what I felt was a total different experience then what i heard, new place, different people, new school, no friends to me it felt like a disaster.
With time I realized that it’s not the people who are different it’s the place and environment, other than that everything else is the same.to me all the people are alike no matter what culture or country they belong to, at the end of the day we are all humans and no one is different from any one in any aspect.
and now I like changes and I like visiting and exploring different places. That’s all the changes that accrued in me because of my life experiences so far.