Read “Personal Experiences and Public Issues””by C.W.Mills. I do understand that this is a difficult reading for some students. It is a very important work and the essence of the discipline. This essay will help you start thinking like a sociologist for rather than emphasizing the individual, the focus is on society (social forces).

I will give you an example of how a sociologist thinks: In the mid 1990s I had a good friend who wanted to get a job in the travel industry. She took courses at a technical school so she could acquire the skills needed for jobs in that field. She got her certificate and tried to find a job. She had no luck. She kept blaming herself stating that she did not have the proper experience to find a job. By stating this, she was looking at psychological (individual) explanations for her failure to find work. The reality was that American Airlines’ employees were threatening to strike. Whenever there is rumor of a strike in the industry, a hiring freeze goes into effect. No one was hiring in any of the travel related jobs at the time my friend was looking for a job. The threat of a strike impacted my friend’s ability to find work. This was something beyond her control as an individual. Once the freeze was lifted, she had several job offers.

What I want you to do for this exercise is this:

Summarize the article in a few sentences (a paragraph). You can refer to the textbook as well (Chapter 1)

I would like you to think of an example in which you may have had a family member,friend or even yourself who was impacted by social forces such as “outsourcing, downsizing, restrictive policies, changing technologies,or migration patterns” (Ferris and Stein: 2011: 13). You can even look at how age, gender, race and ethnicity may impact these opportunities.

Needs to be cited from Real World an Introduction to Sociology by Kerry Ferris and Jill Stein; article by C.W. Mills. Paper needs to be double spaced