Sean Wykoski

Junior Cornerstone

Dr. Simpler

1/30/14

What is the most sensible position?

After reading the different articles posted, there were many that I liked, but there was one that I liked the most. Cultural determinism was the one that I thought made the most sense. It is definitely plausible because as we know, stereotypes exist. I feel as though these stereotypes are traits that define someone to a certain type of culture and lifestyle. Where we live tends to define us. I talked about in my previous post that where someone lives has an impact on their lifestyle and these influences tend to lead them down the career path they want to follow.

My parents are both musicians and have definitely had an influence on my life and the decisions that I am making. I'm attending Belmont because I want to pursue a life in the music industry, but I don't think that I would be at Belmont, or as interested in music as I am now if it weren't for my parents. If I had grown up in a town that was all about farm life and I had grown up on a farm then I would most likely be interested in pursuing a career in agriculture, but do to me being raised in a house of musicians I found a passion in music.

Strengths and Weaknesses

I think that my position has both good strengths as well as good weaknesses. For starters, most people are very influenced by their parents and their community. The town that I grew up in had a lot of families that were either doctors, lawyers or businessmen/women. When all of us went off to college all of these kids who grew up in doctor, lawyer or business households are studying medical, law, and business at college. Since they were around a lot of people who also grew up like they did, they had a common interest among the community. However, there are definitely out liars to my position.

 There were many kids who were not like the kids I stated previously, myself included. While I did state that my parents had a great influence on me, my community did not however influence a majority of my decisions growing up. My high school was very much into athletics. Myself, not so much. So while all of my friends and classmates were ranting on about sports, I was off in my own world with music. I was one of two in my class to apply and attend Belmont, the other girl transferred her freshman year. I'm the only student I know of who is studying Audio Engineering. To bring attention back to the point I made about my parents, they did influence me to like music, but they raised me on Classic Rock. Today I listen to punk-rock almost exclusively. So they gave me my musical influence, but I found my own style of musical taste that they did not show me. So in a way, culture does influence you, but it doesn't always have a definite influence on who you are.