Influential People

The first influential person  that I am going to talk about is someone that I personally know and am super close with. This person is my older sister Ashley. It is common for younger siblings to want to be like their older siblings and do exactly what they do. Lucky enough for me my sister is someone that almost anyone would want to be like and copy as a younger sibling. She has influenced my life in so many ways.

The first way in which she has influenced my life is in my hobbies that we share. Since she is older than me she often had the opportunity to do things that I could not participate in yet. When we were younger we both played volleyball, basketball and softball. Seeing her playing these sports it made me want to do them as well. Even though she did not continue to play these sports through high school like I did she had a  great influence on me. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t of been so active in sports. Being in sports year round since middle school has had a bigger influence on my life than almost anything else that I have done. It has gotten me to where I am today competing at a Division 1 level. I personally believe that none of this would have been possible without her and her push to always make me better.

She also has had an influence on my life in her drive that she has had in school. Being younger than her she set the standards for me and what I felt was necessary to achieve in school. Being the competitive person that I am if she achieved something you can bet that I was right there with her trying to do the same thing if not something better. In school she has always been a great student and smart individual so I’m just trying to do the same thing. Ashley makes me strive for the best and to not accept anything less, even if I’m not as smart as her. She completed and graduation from college with a degree in accounting with a GPA of 3.92, which sets high standards for me and will only make me want to strive for the best.

The second person that I see as an influential person is my Sociology professor here at Eastern Michigan University Denise Reiling, Ph.D.  I chose her as an influential person who has impacted several people. I say this because just during the half of semester I have had her as a professor she has had such an influence on me and how I view a lot of topics differently now. So this being said I know she has had to of had a influence on other student along with her family, friends and others.

Part of her being so influential to others may be because of her profession in sociology. Sociology is everywhere and she makes such deep connections to the real world and really helps student open their eyes on today’s problems and how we should approach them differently. Her classroom is a place where I feel as though all students are given the information in which we need to learn and to apply it to real life making it influential. Unlike other classes where you wonder if you will ever need this information again.

Another aspect of her class is that she talks frequently about her life story. Her main focus that it has to deal with is upward social mobility, which means moving up a social status. She talks about how she came from a very poor family and all of the struggles that she has gone though to get to where she is now. Her life story is by far one of the most life changing and inspiring ones that I have ever heard. It influences people by making others realize that achieving what you want won’t always be easy, but it is possible. This makes students feel hope for themselves and others around them which Is really influential of her.

The third influential person I am going to talk about Martin Luther King Jr. He is an influential person who has gone down in history and has affected a very large group of people in a positive way. I chose him because I see him as someone who has had the greatest influence on others throughout history. Martin Luther King Jr. is very influential because he was one of the leaders of a movement for racial equality. During this movement he preached to others to help them see what the problem was during the time and spoke about it being resolved in the future. He  lead silent protest and other events that changed others beliefs and views of racial discrimination. His influence on racial discrimination is one of the most important in history and without him racial discrimination would not have been ended when it was.

His actions were so influential that he is still talked about to this day and almost everyone knows who he is and what he has done to end racial discrimination in the United States. His influence is held onto by celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. day as a federal holiday every year on the third monday of january. What he envisioned the world to be changed it and made possibly one of the biggest impacts in history. By acting out in nonviolent protest it shows a good example on how there are multiple ways to solve a problem and that violence is not the answer.  His role was very influential on how people view african americans today and how they used to be viewed. By comparing these you can see how his hard work has caused advancements that were needed in order to get where we are in today’s society. Being the influential person he was has changed how others act towards the topic of race as a whole.