Reflection

Making specific references to your work in this course, tell me what it means to think like a political
scientist and how your thinking has been altered by this course. Have any of your assumptions or
understandings changed? Why? What assignments/activities/readings were influential in this
process? How will you approach politics differently?

Before this class, I did not know much about the political system in the United States in general,

but after the readings, discussion, researchers, and essays that I wrote, I am now able to understand

more about how the political system in the United States works. A topic that we discussed this semester

in this class was about Abolition Critical Reading Reflection. The reading assignments for that topic were

the Benjamin Banneker’s letter and Frederick Douglass’ speech which stand against racial discrimination

and slavery. Thanks to the readings of that week, I just realize that even we are in other time and

circumstances, racial issues still are present in our society and the fight for equality is still present today.

I also was able to write a short argumentative essay about an immigration reform in the United States.

That essay is trying to convince people in general about the necessity of an Immigration reform in the

United States. I was able to understand the United State is a country of immigrants, so it is time to fix

our Immigration system in order to respond to the necessity of millions of immigrants that already live

here and for those who are coming now.

Another topic that I had little understanding of was the political Campaign Finance. Now I understand

how the political campaign in the United States are financed, and the problem that the financial

contributions of large corporations represent to our democracy. On the other hand, I enjoyed learning

about the gerrymandering political practice. I did not know about the effect of gerrymandering in the

United States political system, but this article opened my eyes to how a politician can redraw districts to

gain more votes. This course has helped me to open my mind to the different political issues, to

appreciate the freedom that we have in the United States, and to know that democracy makes the

United States a great nation, and learning about it makes us better citizen too.