Crystal Olivas

U.S. Government and Politics

MWF 1100

Political Awareness & Issues

Name the president of the United States 91% of students were able to answer
correctly. Name the governor of Utah only %15 of students knew who the governor of their
state is. Numbers werent that high for some of the other questions either. Ex. Whos the vice
president, Utahs senator, etc. What it looks like to me is that we are more aware of what goes
on throughout the entire U.S., if its popular in public, and not so much of what goes on or who
runs our local surroundings. Reading through the survey, taken by students in our class, I would
say in my opinion I think most people were leaning towards the liberal side. It wasnt a great
difference, almost half were more towards the conservative side. A lot of what was on the
liberal side, I agreed with, as well as a lot of seemed to be on the conservative side. I think a lot
of people are half and half, it seems to be better that way.
Why do we not know a lot about who runs our local government? We all want change,
but if we only know about what goes on with our U.S. government. We are helping with larger
change, which is good. What about the smaller change? The change done in the cities we live
in. Small change may be small, but it has potential to grow large. I think the main reason is
because we focus mainly on whats more popular and easy to access. We want to know what
everyone else thinks, and not everyone knows our local government. Thats why I think more
people know who the president is, and not who runs the city they live in. Yes, our local
government is put into the newspaper and local news. Not everyone pays attention. Media
plays a big role in how people know what they know. I feel that sometimes society is more

focused on worldwide news than their own local news. Government being so important to
liberalist, and a lot of the class not knowing much of their local government makes it seem like
theyd be more on the conservative side. Is the reason they dont know because they dont
care, or just arent educated enough?
I would say it has to do with being educated. Looking over the survey, in my opinion is
that more people were towards the liberal side rather than the conservative side. It was fairly
close, which isnt surprising because I think to make something work things should be
balanced, half and half. There are a lot of issues that I agreed with that had the majority vote.
Some that I didnt agreed with like, implementing a more restricted immigration policy. More
than half of the students voted yes to this this side looked to me to be more on the
conservative side. There were some issues where I was not sure where it fit into, like
conducting surveillance on citizens through NSA only 21% were for this and 79% were against
it. I just was not sure whether being for it would be conservative or liberal. Liberals want to
have the government more involved in our lives so it makes sense to be pro surveillance but
then again I feel like liberals want more freedom? With conservative they want people to be for
themselves, but they also want things to be under control more. So Im not sure what side this
issue would stand on.
Looking over all of the issues and determining which were more conservative and which
were more liberal. The majority that voted came across to be on the liberal side. It was really
close though and it makes sense to be half and half because things work at better that way. I
think even some of the issues were half and half, you couldnt really tell where they belonged.