Accessing folders on my android phone that are visible to the user vi USB

Accessing folders on my android phone that are visible to the user vi USB

When I connect my Nexus 4 to my PC via USB I get a nice set of folders
such as Alarms, Downloads, and DCIM. I would really like to access these
folders. However, when I use Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() to
do so I get /storage/emulated/0 as the returned directory path. When I
create a directory or file there I am unable to see them when I browse
using my PC. My output popup claims that the folder/file exists but I'm
not able to see them. If I do the same thing in my emulator it always
defaults to the "SD card" I mounted and I can see the folders fine.
How would I go about accessing and writing to these folders without root
access. I've been searching all day, and even found a few new leads while
typing this, but no luck.
Thanks for any help you guys/gals can give.