Logan Swierzewski's Autobiography Assignment

ABOUT ME

My name is Logan Swierzewski and I am a senior accounting major and computer science major at Siena College. I plan on coming back next year to finish my Masters in accountancy and hopefully sit for the CPA exam. I chose Siena because it was not that far away from my home town and the small class size. Due to my high school also being far from my hometown I never really had a job since I came home late from sports every night. Therefore I’m excited to be starting my first internship this semester at Teal Becker & Chiaramonte! On campus my first two years I was apart of the Resident Hall Association where I meet many cool people and was able to create events for the students of Siena, namely the Gatsby and Yule Ball. Currently I am apart of Delta Sigma Pi (Professional Fraternity) and Beta Alpha Phi (Accounting & Finance Fraternity). Both have given me great professional success, networking opportunity, and the ability to give back through tutoring.

MY FAMILY

I am the oldest of four siblings, 3 boys and 1 girls, with a mom and dad. We have had numerous pets of the years but currently we have two cats and one fish. Both of my brothers are in college right now, one at RIT and the other at HVCC. My sister a senior in high school in the same district as my mom. My oldest brother and me both went to the same high school, my younger brother another in our hometown, and my sister another where my mom works in Albany due to her having leukemia when she was younger and needing to be by Albany Med as much as possible in the off chance something happens or for her many appointments. My dad has had many jobs over the years being in the office, milk man, and now a chef. My mom has always been a teacher and has taught every grade from preschool to 5th in the Albany School District. My last name sounds as Polish as it gets however, I am mostly Irish and my one uncle took a trip two summers ago to Ireland and was able to see many of our ancestors graves.

HOMETOWN

I come from a small town ~30 minutes south of Albany called Valatie. One thing I associated heavily with the town is O Kenny’s Express. Coming off exit 12 you will soon be greeted by this small store that has the best ice cream! It is right down the road from my house and my family has the tradition of going there the last day of summer. I unfortunately haven’t had the pleasure of eating any of their other food but their ice cream is what they are best at. They have recently down renovations to the place expanding more to the side to sell more ice cream. In 2010, the U.S. Decennial Census reported the population of my town was 1,819 with a racial make up of 93.84% White, 2.14% Native American, 1.37% African America, and 0.49% Asian. Other interesting facts I found from this report was that only 36.8% of households as children under the age of 18 although they make up 24.4% of the town with people over the age of 65 coming in ay 23.8%. Some famous people to come out of my town were Martin H. Glynn, Virginia O’Hanlon, and Martin Van Buren.

DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

In the reading Becker mentions two types of deviant behavior, statistical and stigmatized. Statistical being not the norm is something about you statistically less than the majority. Becker says that looking at deviance from a statistical view is the easiest as it is “anything that varies too widely from the average.” (Becker, 4) He uses the example that I actually fall in with that being left handed. I have always enjoyed being lefty my entire life because it was different from others. What I didn’t know however was that only 10% of the population is left handed. Over break I watched this video of someone trying to explain why people are left handed and how scientist really don’t know why. There has been no increase or decrease just a steady 10% of the population being left-handed. Becker also says “Whether an act is deviant, then, depends on how other people react to it.” (Becker, 11) Being left-handed today is not as bad as it once was. The video mentions how in ancient times it was actually celebrated to be left handed while in midivil and only recently it was accepted. But going back to how people react the video starts off with one member giving his experience that it was “slapped out of him” that he was born lefty but because it wasn’t the norm that he had to change it from parents and teachers. I was fortunate enough to not have this experience but my religion teacher, whom I was close to, would call me the devil for being left-handed because that is what they would do in the older days.

Stigmatized deviance is more of being an outcast which I think also ties in closely with statistical just not looking as close to the numbers. For my own example of deviant behavior I felt like my private school education was a good example.

CAPE reports that private schools account for 25% of the nations schools which make up around 10% of all students in PK-12. This right here is an example of statistical deviance. From 6-12 I was sent to La Salle Institute. An all boy, catholic, military, private school. I think Becker’s quote “social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance.” (Becker, 9) Many people think of private schools as catholic and all boy/girl which in my case is true but another stigmatism is that if you go to a private school you are rich. This is quite the opposite in my case and many others in my high school. I always wished I went to a public high school to have a “real high school experience” but I’m glad that I was able to live that experience and helped me get to where I am today.

We should celebrate deviant behavior. Deviant sounds like a bad thing but it means you’re different in a way that is special. “All social groups make rules and attempt, at sometimes and under some circumstances, to enforce them” (Becker, 1) When we look throughout history the people that embraced change eventually came out on top and have changed the way for the better for so many people. “We must also keep in mind that the rules created and maintained by such labeling are not universally agreed to” (Becker, 18) therefore everyone is special and we should celebrate and understand everyones deviant behavior.

SOURCES

Becker, Howard Saul. Outsiders; Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. London: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963.