Researching Manipulation

After Janelle gave us our specialized blog post assignment, I was on the lookout for manipulation in my life. I thought manipulation would be rare, something people only used “as a last resort”. However, this notion was completely obliterated after only paying attention for a few days. Even though my experiences with manipulation were vast, I will focus in on one that particularly annoys me:

            For my biochemistry class, each student conducts a three-week independent lab study using the techniques we have learned throughout the semester. Right before Spring Break, my professor told the class to start to think about which topics we would like to research for our projects. When we returned from break, my teacher spoke to us again about the research, but this time with a completely different tune. He said that if our ideas were too grandiose, he would shoot the project down. Even though I was a little mad that my professor made it seem like we could conduct whatever research we wanted, that was obviously not true. However, I understood that there were time constraints, and that this point probably would help us rather than hinder us. As my teacher continued to talk, he gave as a few ideas that were “good topics” that would be more practical to research. The one that he pushed the most was one of his research projects for the past few years. I feel as though my professor manipulated the class into thinking that his project was a good project so we could advance his research, rather than explore a topic that truly interested us.