Over the summer (during the 4 weeks that I was home), I spent my time reading many novels and magazines. Some of the novels that I completed this past summer include Unbroken, Thinking, Fast and Slow, and The Hunger Games. In addition, I regularly read The Economist and National Geographic.
My favorite book was Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This book on psychology compares to systems: System 1 and System 2. System 1 is instinctive and very spur-of-the-moment, while System 2 is deliberate and logical. These systems show the two modes of thought and gives examples to demonstrate how the two different systems are used. This book was very interesting because I had never read a book on psychology before. After reading this book, I gained new insight on the human mind and also gained a new perspective on decision-making. Whenever I make a decision now, I try not to be rash, yet not to overload my mind either by devoting an appropriate amount of time to each decision depending on the circumstances. Think, Fast and Slow also had many examples of previous studies and experiments. These studies and experiments showed me that the field of psychology has not been explored much. Many scientists are studying the human mind, but no one has gauged how amazing humans are. It made me think about studying psychology for my undergraduate degree. It was really interesting to note that the author has won a Nobel Prize for Economics. I wonder why he decided to write a book about the human mind...
In addition to reading books, I also read periodicals. I found The Economist and National Geographic to be very interesting. The Economist helped keep me up-to-date with international and national events. In addition, The National Geographic helped me keep in touch with my passion for Geography. I have always loved Geography, but I have not found a way to keep in touch with it since competing in the State Geography Bee in 7th and 8th grade. The magazine remedies most of the problem, but I still miss studying Geography (I just don't have enough time!).
Hopefully my short review of some books and periodicals will make you want to share your favorite novels/periodicals with me! Stay tuned for next week's blog. And remember- "Keep it classy, San Francisco"!
I also miss Geography. It has always been one of my favorite subjects, however there are just few interesting classes on the subject at Dunbar. I took Adv. Geography freshman year and I would have liked to take some more. Maybe PLD can fix this so other geography nuts can keep with the topic!
ReplyDeleteThink, Fast and Slow sounds like a really intriguing book. I've always loved that sort of psychological discussion, considering how human minds work - it seems very applicable while exposing how little we know. I'd actually recommend another book called Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell (the same author as Outliers). It explores similar ideas, talking about split second decisions and their strengths and weaknesses.
ReplyDeleteAn unrelated tip - as awesome of a background picture as you have, it makes the text of your posts very hard to read (at least on my browser). You might want to consider redoing something in your formatting to fix this.
You could double major in psychology and geography- not that the fields are related. Even though psychology hasn't been explored much, there are many books or articles on the Internet on the subject. Just type it into Google. Just make sure you don't point out people's psychological traits to them frequently- it gets annoying. Also make sure your source is reliable. You don't want to draw your mind-reading powers from a bad source!
ReplyDeleteDustin - is this font easier to read?
ReplyDeleteI mostly read fiction; I try to alternate between "classics" (the biggies that I've missed along the way), modern/contemporary fiction (my favorite), and young adult fiction (so I can make recommendations to my sophomores).
ReplyDeleteI do like occasional nonfiction (I recently read "Moonwalking with Einstein" about memory and people who compete in memory competitions).
I also read Men's Health, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and lots of blogs and news websites.