Three Semester Review & Reflection Essay

     I am both happy and honored to have been part of the Media, Self, and Society Scholars Program. I learned so many different media concepts, and I now view media in a way I hadn’t before. I can confidently say that I changed a lot over the past three semesters in the program as I grew academically and socially throughout my Scholars experience. From an academic standpoint, diving into the media has given me the tools to now understand the media's importance and prevalence in society, along with the different avenues that media is presented to everyday people. I gained a new appreciation for television and news, and I now understand the difficulties and process of creating media content. In addition to the in-class learning, I grew socially being part of this Scholars program. Coming to the University of Maryland, I did not know a lot of people and nervously anticipated if I would connect with people. The Scholars program helped me out, as it provided a tight-knit community for me to be a part of, within the larger university campus. This living and learning program gave me the opportunity to connect with and befriend like-minded students who share a passion for media studies, regardless of their actual major. The parts of the program that influenced me most significantly were my instructors and classmates. Even though I really enjoy learning and discussing the news, television, and other forms of media, the people in the Media Scholars program influenced me the most because they showed me the benefit of having a small community within the larger UMD campus. My instructors were so kind and caring to me throughout my experience, and I have also made some great friends among my classmates. This will leave a big impression on me as it shows how great people can contribute to having a great program.

     My Scholars program's title is “Media, Self, and Society”. At first, I was a bit unsure what this title meant, but I now understand it. This title refers to the intersection between social media, television, and news with oneself and with others. Specifically, I think this title covers people’s relation to social media, along with people’s connection and ideas behind mainstream news outlets, television programs, and movies. In essence, this Scholars program’s title shows the media's prevalence in my daily life and in society as a whole. The media plays this important role as it allows us to connect with others. On the one hand, media allows people to message, connect, and stay in touch with other people through various social media platforms. The media also allows us to connect and show our ideas to other people. This can come in the form of a news article or even a television program with a specific message and lesson. Over the past three semesters in Media Scholars, I learned that the media helps our society function. Prior to Media Scholars, I thought that the media simply referred to a random instagram post or just a news program such as CNN; I did not think that it was such an important part of our lives. However, I now understand that the media is salient to society because people wouldn’t be able to share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions with others without it. In essence, the media helps people relate and allows people to express themselves. 

     As the media is prevalent in society, I believe that it easily connects with my psychology major. This is because psychology is used when creating media, in order to get the piece of media to appeal to people. For example, news stories are often constructed to present information in a clear, specific way, and even sometimes to elicit emotions and sympathy from people. In a case like this, psychology is used to help understand how and what people think, which helps determine the best way to present the media in a meaningful and impactful way to people. Additionally, I can apply lessons in media to my life beyond the program. Firstly, nowadays, there is a big push to have underepresented communities, minorities, people of different sexual orientations, and others to be shown more and have better, more important roles in television and in movies. This concept should be applied in other aspects of life as well because these people should be equally represented as employees of a company, admitted students to a university, and more. The media also teaches us the importance of connecting with others. With media, people can connect with their friends on snapchat who they haven’t seen in-person in a few years and kids can use media to contact their parents when homesick at sleep-away camp. Media teaches that people should work hard to maintain contact with others, regardless of their location. This applies to general life as people who make an effort to connect with others through media should make even more of an effort to strengthen their connection with people who are right with them in-person.