Social Sciences Final

In this course, I was introduced to field working. This is different from the conventional English class where the crux of your time is spent writing essays and improving your writing skills. This is still important in this course, but to be able to have social interactions with others by positively understanding everybody’s different point of views. This is where observing and interviewing is important in this course since it pushes you to interact with others, something that is essential to be confident in for the future, and to be able to judge surroundings to understand the feel of the area you’re in. For my study, I joined Climb CCNY and went on their weekly rock-climb sessions at The Cliffs in Harlem.

Background Research: Rock Climbing

Rock climbing is a unique physical activity, that has seemingly been growing in popularity. As shown with the recent opening of The Cliffs in Harlem. It is a great workout to do on a regular basis since it works the whole body. However, what makes rock climbing different from other means of staying fit. Why do rock climbers choose this activity when they can choose more attainable options such as going to a local/commercial gym? Rock climbing has a feeling of risk attached to it makes fulfilling when you can overcome that hurdle. The positive atmosphere and camaraderie promote a need for growth in rock climbing which would make climbers come back to it. Rock-climbing is a unique physical exercise because you need to find the balance between your ego and supportive behavior to have a good time. The risk involved in rock-climbing and the behaviors of rock-climbers showcase this.

            Rock climbing, indoors or outdoors, has a string of risk attached to it. For admission into The Cliffs, I initially had to watch a roughly 10 minute video on climbing etiquette, different types of climbs, and the proper way to fall (even though there are pads). To complete admission into the Cliffs, one of tasks was to watch a 10-minute educational video on climbing etiquette, the different types of climbs, and how to fall properly (even though they have pads). The research article, “Rock Climbing, Risk, and Recognition” by Tommy Langseth and Øyvind Salvesen explains that rock climbers have a “risk-libido”. A level of risk is expected to be taken in rock climbing; without it you likely won’t receive recognition for your actions (Langseth, Salvesen). But why is it that way? Well, it’s because you normally won’t improve unless you add risk into the equation when rock climbing. I failed one climb multiple times by falling on my back, but I still went back up multiple times to finish the climb. So, improvement in rock-climbing and the risk factor does have a relationship. However, that doesn’t mean you would get recognition when you’re trying to do something above your grade. People would just think I’m a goof if I tried a V5 when the best I’ve ever done is V1. Risk-taking is important, but it’s important to have a balance.

            A reason I really like going to the rock-climbing gym is the positivity it exudes. You’re working hard and there are people around you are encouraging you to do your best. The article “Balancing the Bar–Influence of Social Behaviour on Sport Climbing Performance” by F. Simen, A. Hohmann, M. Siener interview high level rock-climbers and gauge how they balance there egoist and supportive behaviors in the gym. All six participants showcased a balanced behavior, developing towards a supportive behavior from an egoistic behavior (Simen, Hohmann, Siener). There is camaraderie and encouragement for everyone to try their best on their climbs, which makes for a good atmosphere to improve in. However, a balance between being supportive and egoistic is needed. For example, there was this one instance when one of the climbers in my club moved ahead to do their own climb. That is a trivial example, but it shows that the ones that really want to get better are going to make the decisions that benefit them.

Works Cited

Langseth, Tommy, and Øyvind Salvesen. “Rock Climbing, Risk, and Recognition.” Frontiers, 4 Sept. 2018, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01793/full.

Simen F, Hohmann A, Siener M. Balancing the Bar-Influence of Social Behaviour on Sport Climbing Performance. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 6;19(15):9703. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159703. PMID: 35955059; PMCID: PMC9368498.

Rock Climbing Observation

I’ve been looking for a club that I would be able to frequent on a regular basis. I technically joined a club called CCNY Circle K; I never went to a club gathering because of laziness and uninterest in the activities provided. I wanted to join a club where I will be having fun while learning important lessons. I happened across the CCNY Climb club. I like staying active, climbing is new and sounds fun, so going to a climbing event with this club on a cheaper membership seemed like a good thing to do.

            The gym that I met the club in is The Cliffs, located on 256 W 125 St. across Apollo Theater, and Spectrum Wireless is next to The Cliffs. I don’t frequent this area, but occasionally I am here (usually on bus), and I never noticed this place. It’s easy to miss since it’s on the second floor of the building, the first floor is just used as a staircase. Coming inside the gym, I was greeted by the receptionist, I told him my name and that I was with CCNY Climb. He then gave me climbing shoes, and a chalk bag. You need specific climbing shoes to climb; chalk is used as greater support for your hands when climbing. My shoes were too small for me surprisingly. It was weird since it was my regular size, apparently climbing shoes are smaller so you’re less likely to slip from your feet since the shoes tighten them.

The gym was only one floor, but it still had a lot going on. There were multiple different structures to climb from, very colorful as well. There were purples, reds, oranges, yellows, blacks, greens etc. for the climbing steps. There was one cliff structure where it would put you high up when reaching the top, falling from that height is bad news, so no way am I trying that first time. The gym wasn’t busy, but wasn’t dead either, it’s at the perfect level of business. And, of course in a climbing gym nobody looked out of shape.

I finally found fellow club members in the locker room, their names were Ray and Edward. They came at the right time because I was thinking about where the club members were. Since it was finals week not as many people signed up. Ray was a black guy (possibly Latino from accent?), and Edward was an Asian. Both seemed like they worked out, especially Edward. We immediately got started on a V0 climb. This gym conveniently has ranks put up for every climb, the lowest is V0, the highest I’ve seen so far is a V10. In comparison, the most Edward and Ray have done are V2 (they’ve been climbing for a few months). The introduction I got to climbing was 0. My club members just said, “okay start climbing”. I messed up at first out of confusion, but the second time I finished my first climb. It wasn’t easy, but doable. After that I finished another V0 in convincing fashion, I was feeling confident and accomplished. Until my next climb.

I started doing another V0, but this felt more difficult than the others I completed. The difference with this one was that the steps to hold onto were smaller and spread more apart, the other climbs were more compact with bigger steps. I would be able to get one hand on the finish, but when I tried to finish it with two hands I would fall off. After three tries, I still couldn’t do it, while my club members were able to do it first try. Even though this was my first day, I still got disappointed by that.

Delvy, another club member came along now. He was lean compared to Ray and Edward; I could tell he was Mexican since he had a Mexico soccer jersey. Delvy, Edward, and Ray all tried a V2 climb. Edward finished on his first try, Ray on his third, it took Delvy a lot more tries though. He tried very hard, and after about 10 or so tries he was able to do it. It wasn’t without many failures though. He had one bad fall where he hit his arm on one of the steps, fortunately he wasn’t hurt badly. That endeavor of his showed me that you must be persistent in rock climbing.

Another member named Frank came along. I think he was Latino, he also had a nice physique, but I thought Edward’s looked better. He was seen as “pro” climber out of this group at least since he’s been climbing for two years. After that we moved to another section starting with a V1 climb. I failed miserably on this one, I never got far, even with pointers from Frank. A mix of muscle fatigue and inexperience was likely the cause, but it didn’t make me feel better. Especially since everybody else finished it first try. After consecutive fails, I would be lying if I said I was feeling 100% confident, but my club members encouraged me. We moved to do another V1, which I was reluctant to do since my recent V1 failure was still in my mind. But Ray said that we’re all just trying to do it, you don’t need to complete it. That helped me, and I tried to do it, but it was hard. Although everybody else also failed.

We then went back to the V0 I couldn’t finish before. With difficulty, I was able to finish it this time. Finishing this and then getting high fives helped me feel very confident and made me think that practice makes perfect. After this I felt motivated to finish a V1. I tried very hard with Delvy to finish a V1 that was incredibly difficult, Frank was able to finish, but he didn’t finish easily. After some time, I thought it was best to finish up and go home.

Rock climbing was a great experience for me. I met cool, new people and learned to do a cool, new hobby. Even though I was tired at the end of it, and felt sore for a while, I still feel excited to keep doing it on a regular basis. And, not just because of the activities, but I feel I can make good friends in this club. Everybody seemed likeable and would make good friends to hang out with. I’ve been looking for a club where I could have fun, but also learn new things, and Climb CCNY is that club.

A part of the gym

Interviewing a Club Member

I was at the rock-climbing gym, the Cliffs. Doing my climbing exercises was difficult, but it’s fun and I can feel the improvement. I was with a few other club members as well. Although this interview is focused on Ray and not the others. Ray is one of the climbing buddies I have at the Cliffs. He’s taller than me but stockier. He has short, kinky black hair, with dark skin, he could be of Latino descent from how he speaks but I could be wrong. Today he was wearing a gray shirt with blue pants, standard and basic. Wouldn’t want to wear something nice to the gym. He had the chalk bag in hand for grip on his hands, and the climbing shoes you get from the front desk that you need to get a size larger than normal because they’re so tight.

            There was a decent amount of time between each climb we do, so I would converse when given the chance. Ray wanted to start rock climbing because he likes to stay fit, and also wanted to do something different. So, this semester he joined the rock-climbing club and has been going almost every week since February. He says it’s been a great experience for him, and the people here are fun to be with. I would expect that since he’s been going religiously for a few months now.

            I was reminded of Delvy’s awkward fall when he was trying to finish a climb. So, I asked him if he ever tried to land in a way where he doesn’t get hurt. “the basic thing is to not keep your arms sticking out when you fall. That would just hurt your arms. I don’t have a technique or anything like that though.” Ray also says you should watch your head if you fall. It doesn’t hurt too much because of the padding, but you’d rather not let that happen. I agree with that, since I also fell bouncing my head on the ground, not the best feeling but manageable.

            Ray did go to some outdoor rock-climbing events with Climb CCNY. It was in Central Park during spring break. The experience was very difficult for him. Apparently, climbing an actual rock is more difficult than the ones in the gym. Ray was talking about how it was rough even with the chalk he had, and it was difficult to map out how he wanted to climb because of course a rock isn’t going to be consistent. He failed miserably, but he would still go again.

            With Climb CCNY we’re on a special membership with the gym where we only pay $10 for every weekly session, regular memberships are about $90 monthly. I asked him if he ever had the interest to pay that much so he could just go whenever. He said that he does like rock climbing, but to make that purchase worthwhile he would need to go every day, but he doesn’t have the time for that.

            There are other ways you can climb in the gym besides the regular bouldering. You can also climb with a rope, and it’s called belaying, I don’t know it well. Ray never did it either, you need to have greater experience and specific training to be able to do the belayed climbing. Ray also said that he wasn’t interested in it anyways. He likes bouldering, and wants to focus on that, he still doesn’t think he’s that good to be trying to do everything.

            Ray doesn’t have a longstanding goal with rock-climbing, but right now he wants to accomplish a V3 rock-climb. He said he’s been trying to do it for the past sessions he’s attended now. But he still hasn’t been able to get the hang of it. “I’m trying to do this V3, but the middle part is way to spread out for me to get a decent grip on it.” I think at some point he will be able to do it because he is very persistent.

            This was a chill interview since we were just working and talking. Personally, I feel awkward when I have to talk formally, so I felt relaxed. Ray was a good interviewee, I never had to pry a more elaborate answer out of him. He seemed naturally extroverted and liked to talk. I would say rock climbing at the same time made this interview more dragged out, but I was in there for a while, so it wasn’t a problem. In conclusion, this was a fun and different interview from the peer interview earlier in the semester.

Excerpt of Transcript of Ray’s Interview

Humza: Ray why’d you want to start doing rock climbing anyways?

Ray: Oh, you know, I just wanted to join a club where it would be me just having fun and working out. I never rock-climbed before so I was thinking that I should try it out. And, I’ve just been going regularly for a few months now.

Humza: Hey do you have a technique for when you fall or you just brace for impact?

Ray: I don’t really have a technique, but you shouldn’t stick your hands out when your falling because you could hurt your arms if you land in the long way. Also, you should watch out for your head. There’s patting but you still don’t want to fall hard on your head.

Humza: Yeah, I hit my head like that once when I fell, so I know what you mean.

Ray: You should try to land on your back first or something.

Humza: How are the outdoor sessions at this club?

Ray: I went there, and it was brutal.

Humza: Why?

Ray: Let’s just say that climbing in the gym is a lot easier than outside. The rock we were climbing on was really rough even with the chalk on my hands, I could barely get up. And, then there were other guys doing it, and I was like damn. I couldn’t even get a good idea of how to climb, in the gym it’s a lot more easier to tell what route you should take to reach the top.

Humza: So, you don’t want to do it again then?

Ray: No, I would probably still try to do it.

Humza: Where was the event located in anyways?

Ray: In Central Park.

Interviewing a Classmate

I got paired up late with my partner because he wasn’t present in the first class, so I had to have a group interview with two other classmates. I wasn’t a fan of this format because it didn’t feel like an interview, and I couldn’t delve into my partner’s questions since we had to move it along. So, in the next class I wanted a traditional interview, which was when I got paired up with Esham. The first thing I noticed about Esham was his earrings, probably because I wanted some earrings too. He has dark, medium-length hair and a beard; his clothing consisted of a gray sweater, black pants, and gray Yeezys. His name, Esham, means the iron one’s estate.

            Esham was born and raised in Brooklyn, with his family originating from Bangladesh. The high school he attended was Brooklyn Collaborative Studies. I asked him what it was like, and he gave a terse answer, “it was boring.” We then went into the conversation of friends, since school alone wasn’t a fun experience for him. Esham talked about how his school was made up of mostly Mexican American students, and he made friends with a handful of fellow students of South Asian descent at his school; he also had one Mexican friend. He stated how he and his friends did dumb things like copying an essay off the internet and submitting it to the teacher as is and somehow not failing. I noticed that although he was metaphorically shaking his head looking back at memories with his friends, they were still fun memories for him since he was smiling while recalling this memory.

            Esham enrolled into City College because he took an interest in its school of architecture. His dad is also in the construction field as a contractor, he stated that his dad has been in this line of work since 2004. He went into detail on his dad worked towards his contracting career. Esham was saying this with admiration for his dad’s work ethic, and that admiration may have given him motivation to get into the construction field as well. In 5 years, he sees himself graduating from City College and starting out as an architect, in 10 years’ time he sees himself working jobs as an architect regularly.

            Esham isn’t a fan of reading. I did try to convince him to read some manga, maybe he would like less words, more pictures, but he wasn’t couldn’t care less about reading manga unfortunately. However, he does like reading the Quran. He says he has been reading the Quran lately with English translation to understand the scripture. Even though he’s recited the Quran since he was young, he didn’t have much of an interest in it when he was younger because he didn’t understand Arabic.

            Esham does like to write. He says the type of writing he likes is free writing, since he has freedom of what to write about. That’s why he liked the first assignment, the letter of introduction, it was just him writing about himself. As a kid, he would also like to write about fictional stories about super heroes.

            Esham used to go to a kickboxing gym for a while. He trained long enough to have a mock fight with a guy who trained in taekwondo, he lost, but it was a competitive loss according to him. He has a wide variety of music that he likes to listen to from Lil Baby to Coldplay, his favorite artists right now are Nav, Lil Baby, and Future. But, this is contradictory to what he said before since these are all hip-hop artists that he mentioned. If Esham won the lottery, he would prioritize getting a car, “who wouldn’t buy a car if they just got millions of dollars?” Putting that aside, Esham said he would still go to school, but leave it as part-time since he wouldn’t think he would need to prioritize going to school if he already has millions in his bank account. Paying off his dad’s debt would be a priority for him though, and setting up a financial plan with his dad would also be important for him to have long-term wealth. He would also like to give donations, since he believes if you have a lot of money you should give donations. This could be a religious factor as well, since one of the pillars of Islam is zakat aka donating to the needy.

            I realized that a lot of the content that Esham consumes on social media are reels, which are just < 1 minute clips that are synonymous with TikTok, but have now been used in other platforms like YouTube, and Instagram. Esham has used all of these social media platforms, but deleted TikTok when he realized it was too time consuming, although he still watches reels on YouTube, and Instagram is similar to TikTok with a bunch of small pieces of content consumed at a fast rate. I personally avoid apps like TikTok and Instagram because it feels empty after a while just scrolling away. He also likes to watch a YouTube channel named “Best Ever Food Reviews” where a guy with a red bandana goes around the globe eating wacky delicacies specific to one culture. He has nearly 10 million subscribers, and Esham was disappointed that I never heard of him.

            Esham seemed relaxed in giving his answers, and I didn’t feel as if there was any pressure in answering the questions. He was attentive to what I was asking him, and he gave me answers quickly, a little bit blunt though. I would try to elaborate on the questions to get a greater feel, for example, “it was boring” (in response to how high school was for him). I really liked getting to know Esham through this interview format, I feel like a learned a decent amount about the type of person he is. All in all, it was an interesting interview for me that gave me insight into Esham.

Self-Assessment

English for the Social Sciences is a class that I have been taking for the spring semester of 2023. Before this I took English 100, which is Freshman Composition English. In that course, was individualizing my English to sound more like myself. So, most of the major assignments were focused on myself. For this semester, I wanted to do an English class that was a bit different; so, I chose this class. Although there were some assignments that were focused on myself (intro, and cultural artifact), a lot of the assignments were focused on someone that wasn’t me (peer interview, interview, observation etc.). 

            The major difference from this class from other English classes, is that the assignments seem more hands on then the assignments of other English classes. The course learning objectives #4, and #9 showcase this. Writing field notes and conducting two interviews gave me a better understanding of these two course learning outcomes. For my field study, I signed up for rock climbing, something I never did before. Through that I collaborated with others through the interview and made relationships with new people. These course learning outcomes outline the differences between my previous class and English for the Social Sciences.

Another difference from this class is that I would receive more input on grammatical errors, but what would be a more efficient way to speak. This is highlighted by course learning outcome #2. For example, I have been told in most of my assignments that I could shorten my sentences, or I had some grammatical errors that hindered my paper. I have been advised that the semi colon is a punctuation that should be used instead of the comma at times. This is helpful in writing my papers to be more concise in the future. Although, some of the advice may not be relevant for everyone since the advice seems to be rooted in the social sciences way of writing. Which probably isn’t completely relevant for an English field. The class allowed me to properly make drafts for papers. Initially, I would overthink the drafts and take too much time writing them. However, with this class I have been assured that it is a part of the writing process, and Dr. Steegmann gave a rule of thumb that I should give myself an hour to write these papers. All these actions improved my writing to be more concise and to the point.

Course learning outcome #1 is an important process of interviewing. Since this class is more focused on the people around you, it’s imperative that you understand that people are individuals and won’t think the same. You wouldn’t want your interview to be a boring transcript just listing what you asked, and what they said. You need to get each other’s emotions out of the interview. In both of my interviews, I paid attention to the mannerisms of both of my interviewees, and I could easily tell that Esham, Ray and I don’t talk the same. That won’t be possible if you don’t pay attention to linguistic differences.

To write a cohesive paper, the most important thing is to have a main idea that you want to convey throughout the paper, course learning outcomes #3 and #6 highlight that. For example, I had to write my cultural artifact paper very differently to the other assignments in this class. It was a personal story, so it would make sense to show sentimentality in this paper that wouldn’t be present in the interview and class observation. I had to make sure that it tied in with my cultural artifact, I couldn’t go into detail into something that didn’t directly relate to my picture. For example, I talked about Beyblade and Naruto briefly, it would be out of place to write a whole paragraph about them. These course learning outcomes made me stay focused on the goals I had in my assignments.

            Course learning outcomes #7 and #8 are relevant for the digital portfolio. For the field studies, you need to be able to defend your claims with outside, credible sources. It is even more important that you know the sources are credible and where to find them.

I learned Course learning outcome #5 through the readings given to us throughout the semester. We would read examples of past students’ assignments in this class, like the classroom observation of the jazz class. Or we would get a professional perspective, like from the Iowa 80 field study. These examples gave me an idea of what to include in these assignments.

            I would say that most of the assignments were engaging for me. My favorite assignment was doing the cultural artifact assignment because I was writing about myself from a long time ago, so it made me reminisce a bit. There were some group works that I didn’t care for though. There was one assignment where we had to look into our partner’s bag. Based off what was in the bag we would analyze the type of person they were. I didn’t see the point in this assignment. I didn’t care what was in their bags, and I wasn’t the only one who thought that because I asked another student about it, and they thought the same thing. Another class work we did was arranging our seats around. The point of that was to get us used to an unfamiliar environment for the class observation. But I didn’t care. I didn’t feel any different about sitting somewhere I don’t normally sit. Although, I don’t think everybody would agree with me since a lot of people did seem to want to sit in their normal seats. Due to some of the mundane class assignments, I really felt the class would drag on. But, for the most part the classwork and homework were engaging for me.

In conclusion, it was a good experience enrolling in this class. I learned about English in a unique way with the multimodal aspect of taking myself out of my boundaries with the interviews and observations. The feedback for assignments was great because it let me know of the bad habits I would have when writing. I will remember this class well because it is unique from other classes, and it let me start rock climbing.

Cultural Artifact

The cultural artifact I brought to class is of me as a toddler, probably a year old. I’m on a dark brown couch with a dark brown curtain behind me. I’m wearing a white and blue shirt with an America logo (ironic); white shorts and having my same hair but a lot shorter than what it is now. What I noticed about myself is that of course I’m a lot smaller, and hairless except from the top of my head; my skin looks lighter than what it is now. I heard that your hair and skin color does get darker as you get older; that must be the reason. This is the oldest item in my family’s home, besides some old clothing that my parents may still have; I don’t care about that though. I want to get in-depth on why this picture is important to me.

            The person who took this picture, I can’t confirm it; it had to be my mom. All moms love taking pictures of their kids, right? I could tell my mom liked taking pictures of me. Besides the one picture I showed in class, there are other pictures of me as a kid hung up somewhere in my house. I feel like it was more convenient to put pictures in frames back then. Now everybody takes pictures with their phones, in the 2000s and before that you would need a separate camera for that stuff. Thinking about that, it really makes me think how much not just me, but how much the world changed.

            As I said earlier, I was a young toddler when this picture was taken, and I was born in 2002. So, this picture was taken 20 years ago. 20 years ago was also when Naruto and Beyblade came out, definitely watched my fair share of those as a kid. 20 years ago was also me still living in Pakistan, specifically Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi is known as a twin city of the capital of Islamabad since they are right by each other. It’s like you driving to the Bronx from Manhattan. Rawalpindi is also densely populated like New York City, although it doesn’t have a grid pattern; it can be maze-like going in a neighborhood. These roads can be very narrow. Islamabad is pristine compared to Rawalpindi, not as many people, and there are more things to do there. There are a lot of mountains in this region. Just north of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, the mountain ranges are there and you could see them well. Pakistan is a geographically diverse country, there are plains, plateau, desert, forest, and of course mountains. Some people like to consider Pakistan an extension of the Arab world, and think we too are desert land. That just isn’t the case, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t annoy me.

My home in Rawalpindi was a two-story house, I lived on the ground floor with my mom, and sister. My dad was in the United States working as a taxi driver then; my two other siblings weren’t born yet. Besides my mom and sister, I would spend a lot of time with my other family members. On the second floor was my uncle’s (my dad’s younger brother) family, it consisted of my uncle, aunt and 7 of my cousins, 3 boys and 4 girls. Of course, I played a lot with my cousins, all of them are older than me besides one. Not just them, I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s home (mom’s side). This was before any of my uncles got married; I spent a lot of time with them. Now that I look back at my time living in Pakistan, I have more memories of my cousins and uncles then of my sister.

Even though most of the days I don’t notice this picture sitting on the massive dressing table in my parents’ bedroom, it still is very important to me because it reminds me of my roots. It shows me of an early stage of my development that my adult self won’t remember at all because of baby amnesia, but also my cultural roots. Although I am an American, I also can’t forget that I am also Pakistani. I hope that this picture will be around even when I’m an octogenarian, so I could scare my grandkids that father time will not be kind to you over the years.