Self And Community Class Analysis

It’s been said that college is a time for one to explore the world around them, and grow as an individual. More often than not the beliefs, opinions, values, interest, and many other aspects of an individual’s life evolve after attending a college or university. I know this personally, because I have now nearly completed my first semester of my freshman year in college. My outlook on the world from the time I graduated high school, in May, has dramatically changed throughout the course of several months. An essential component of my transformation has been the “Self and Community” class I am taking at Olivet College. I was placed in this class to fulfill part of my liberal arts core requirements, and I do not regret the placement. Although …show more content…
My family has bounced around between middle and lower class, but as of the past few years I was convinced our economic status was lower class. After being in this class, and undergoing the activities we have done, I have been more representative of the middle class to my peers. An instance where I really started to see this was when we did the privilege wall during a session. The way this worked was everybody stood in a straight horizontal line to start, and we were then asked a series of questions. These questions represented either privileged or unprivileged aspects of life. Every question asked each individual had either a positive, negative, or no change reaction. Steps forward represented the positive privileges, while steps back were used to show negative aspects. At the conclusion of our activity my peers and I were spread apart in distance, but what I was most shocked to see was where I stood in comparison to everyone. My spot seemed to be “higher middle class” in our small sample. For someone who considers his family to be lower class in the real world, it was shocking to see my final spot compared to my peers. This activity changed my perception on how I see myself, as well as how I saw my peers around me. It was a very new feeling, and thanks to self and community I was able to come to that …show more content…
Attending Olivet College has been a blessing to me, and I have gotten the opportunity to meet so many great people on campus. I have not only found a group of guys that I associate with on a daily basis, and are my closest friends here, but I have made friends with many different types of people on campus as well. A key thing here at Olivet that I am still trying to come to terms with is that my life is whatever I want to make it. The possibilities are endless, and if I really want to achieve something I need to put my whole heart into it. Right now I am trying to figure out what that is that I want to do, but I know when I figure it out it’ll be great. The nice thing about this college is that there is so many options for md to try and figure that out, and that’s what I like to call the Olivet advantage. This place already in three months has helped me explore many different things in life to try and find myself. I have become more self-responsible since I been here, and I’ve never been so independent in my life. I am coming to learn that it is my duty to be me, and respect other for who they are. I’ve heard “to each their own” before, but it’s never been so clear to me now that I am surrounded by all these wonderful people here at Olivet. I know the journey ahead of me is long and that life will challenge me to level I don’t comprehend right now; however, I