Culture Observation Paper

Words: 1412
Pages: 6

Shared behavior, ideologies and relics is the basis for culture. It is non-other than a way of life passed down to the next generation from the previous1. Culture is very important aspect of anthropology and without knowing a culture specific such as behavior it very hard to study a culture. The ability to observe a gives the ability for anthropologists to better learn a culture fully. By observing anthropologists can note changes in behavior and social life of a culture which is very important part of history. Likewise, science is its own culture, which is built upon the behavior, factual ideologies and relics. In this observation paper I will observe a scientific workshop and try to understand its culture.
The place of observation I selected
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I sat up front and close to the door which gave me a good observable view of the whole venue. The first thing I noticed was the number of students in the venue as it filled quickly with individuals I assume are undergraduates planning to apply to graduate school. There were three speakers who were all Caucasian and the audience, from a glance, consisted mostly of Caucasians, Asians followed by a small percentage of African-Americans. The three speakers consisted of two males and one female who were all in their 50s and the majority of the audience seemed to be young adult …show more content…
Scientific speeches may look similar to general presentation, but there are more differences than similarities. The speakers do not expand on all the technical jargons and they speak less and try to give more information2. That is exactly what I observed, the speakers were using scientific terms where a person without a scientific background would be lost. Speakers do not have to “dumb” things down because they assume that the audience has a certain level of scientific, or in this case chemical, knowledge in order to be interested in the workshop. One observable pattern during the talk was if a speaker claims something they will look at they next speaker on the panel to make sure he is right. I observed every speaker claim something and look at the other speaker until they gave a nod. This is because the speakers are not all from the same part of the country, so they want to give the right information to the audience and make sure what they claim applies to all of the schools across the country. Additionally, as speakers gave out information, the audience started to ask questions. The speakers were very straight forward and brutal with anything they wanted to say, because there is a drawback in giving importance to emotions over facts. This kind of accuracy is very commonly seen in scientific talks. This was clear when a student asked what was the minimum grade point average to get into