First Lecture: Monday January 18th

  For this lecture, we learned the answers to the questions of "what are we?", 

"where are we?" and "who are we" in regards to The United Kingdom of Great Britain and 

Northern Ireland (the country's official title) and those who reside with in it.  We discussed all 

of the varying regions with in the country including Scotland, Wales and North Ireland. 

Learning about Scotland was very intriguing to me. I was never previously aware that 

Scotland was officially apart of the United Kingdom and I was surprised to find this out.  We 

also learned about the different groups of people who have resided in this country. The Beaker 

people, the Celts, the Romans, the Anglo Saxons, and the Normans are among these differing 

groups, all having left their marks on the country through their burial habits (Beaker people),  

their technologies (the Celts and Romans) and infamous invasions (Saxons and Normans). The 

details of these groups of people along with the history of the different regions in the country 

including Scotland, Ireland and Wales were among the key points of this lecture.

The things I found most interesting about this lecture were learning of the histories of 

Scotland, N. Ireland, and Wales as mentioned above.   I learned a great deal about how they 

came to be apart of Great Britain and yet are known as being independent "countries" with 

their own individual cultures.  I found it interesting that the Scottish are so passionate about 

their culture and heritage, for example, and that the Welsh include their native language along 

with English on every single sign in Wales and also teach children Welsh in schools as to not 

lose this part of their culture. I also found it interesting that England never had a revolution 

and has not been invaded for 1000 years. I always new England to be one of the very powerful 

countries that exists so learning these facts shed some light on that point for me.

This lecture connects to my major field of study, sociology. In sociology we learn about  

various societies and how they work. This lecture did not go into too much  detail of different 

class structures and inequalities with in societies, for example, but we did learn about different 

groups of people and their customs and traditions.