Oliur Rahman

Dr. Martin- Wednesday Seminar

E-Protfolio- P.S 1010
April 18, 2016

Reflection Political Science 1010

Coming into the course of Political Science I did not know what to expect. Prior to
enrolling, students that have taken the course in the past have said it was a class that required
group work as its focal point. I never really enjoyed working with groups because it would
always lead to conflict regarding how much effort each individual would be putting in. The one
thing that surprised me the most about my myself was that I learned to cope with the problem
that we had selected to go about, through out the semester. The problem that we chose to
research and work on was the lack of funding for Detroit Public Schools itself, and the arts and
music department. Because I attended DPS all my life I felt I would have leverage over our
selected problem. I was wrong, there were many places of Detroit that I have never even visited,
along with the numerous amount of problems the city was facing. I understood the poverty the
city was facing, but to know that the arts and music departments were being completely cut out
was shocking. I do plan on working on this problem after I have completed the course. I plan to
continue volunteering at the Detroit Arts & Scraps (nonprofit organization).
As far as group work goes, I learned that it helps to have more people involved in the
same problem you are helping to cure. For instance, volunteering at the site helped the cause
because we were engaging in hands on activities to build art kits for public schools. Our time and

labor helped speed up the nonprofit organizations revenue, and run business smoothly. I also
learned you need a group to get attention to a problem that is affecting the city as a whole. For
example, Detroit Renaissance High School decided to completely cut off their arts and music
departments because of the lack of funding. Another example would be the sick outs by
teachers because of pay cuts. If one teacher or two teachers were to call a sick off and protest
against the matter it would not have paid off. However, over 88 schools were closed, and
teachers all through out the district petitioned, protested, and got publics attention. Similarly, us
as a group were building towards a community that was in need of help. As mentioned before,
me attending Detroit Public Schools all my life is the biggest relation I have to this project. Skills
that I have learned are mainly socially related type. I have also learned to be more organized and
efficient with whatever task at hand. Situations that attributed were the times when we had to
organize the kits and put certain objects or materials in each kit. All in all, I believe this has been
a wonderful learning experience for me, and skills such as organization, social, and efficiency
will always come into play in the near future. I will always remember to give back to certain
discourse communities in need.