“Students will enhance their appreciation for and understanding of the rich complexity of the human experience through the study of differences in ethnic and cultural perspectives, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and ability.”
The second goal at Portland State University is saying that people of different ethnicities bring their own experiences into the picture. The various statuses that humans encompass are important tools for better understanding people and their history.
During Fall Term, the Weighing Privilege Assignment was the best piece of work that allowed me to demonstrate my achievement in this goal. My paper focused on the advantages upper class people in America have in retrospect to the disadvantages lower class society has in America. By studying the differences in social class, I was able to gain great insight on the vast number of disparities between the social classes in America. There were many topics to choose from for this assignment, but looking at social class was particularly important to me, because in the United States money is a driving factor for almost everyone. Money motivates people to want to get a good education to then get a good job so that you can make good money. Money is like a means to a happy and successful life. Our culture strives for money and places values, good and bad, to upper class people as well as the lower class. The stigma placed on people from upper class society is far more appealing than that of a lower class, poor member of society.
There was three main areas that this paper provided important insight to. Of the ten disparities I discussed in the paper, the two that stood out to me most were crime and health. Crime in the United States is nothing new, but how often do we associate crime with poverty? I looked into this concept for the paper and found that there is a strong correlation between crime rates and poverty. Health is another key area that I looked into, and more specifically healthcare. I had never thought to myself that the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in America would be unpaid medical bills, and sure enough it was. That is a disturbing fact that shocked me when I read it. At any given moment, an upper class person could go bankrupt with one unfortunate medical event. The cost of healthcare and medical bills is increasing and increasing while the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer!
The research that I did to back up my opinions was the most impressing thing in my mind. I had a vast number of differences between the two major social classes in America, but initially I had trouble finding sources to back up what I had to say. I used many search engines to find the articles, but in the end the hard work paid off. I had reliable sources and the new information I found proved to be educational and insightful. I learned a lot by researching the topics, and with social class disparity being such a hot topic, finding solid references was not much of a problem; avoiding unreliable sources was the only thing holding me back. The research I did on this paper proved to strengthen my paper and provided me a foundation for success.
If I could go back and make changes on my paper I would not have to look to hard for areas of improvement. I had three grammatical errors on the first two pages! It is very rare that I make spelling mistakes and on this paper I overlooked those mistakes. Grammatically, I could have made a few changes that would have further strengthened my paper. This can be done in the future by reading over my work multiple times and having another person check over for simple mistakes like spelling errors.
Illegal Immigration Stakeholders & Contract
This project was very educational and involved research on a current issue in America. Being that this university goal focuses on understanding the human experience, what better project than to look at the conflict of illegal Mexican aliens on U.S. soil and what to do with them. The insights gained on the different stakeholders gave a vivid picture of the complexity involved in the conflict. Annalysa, Stephanie, Kristin, Megan, and I did an all around excellent job in assigning parts, completed work by specified due dates, and gave a presentation that was evidence of the hard work and time put into completing the assignment. The most difficult part was looking at the different stakeholders and putting their view front and center on the issue, then writing a paper based on their side of the story. Furthermore, finding a solution to the ongoing conflict was difficult considering the American Government is currently having a difficult time doing the same thing. I would have liked seeing how Stephanie came up with the design so I could be better prepared to make a web layout on future assignments in college. Other than that, there is not much else I would have changed reflecting back.
