Vic Reyes

Dr. Smith

Econ: Poverty and Inequality

Reflection of Poverty/Inequality Section

The first thing that grabbed my attention in this section was that we were actually going to be

measuring inequality. I found this very interesting and it was something I enjoyed learning. However, I

am not sure how effective these measurements actually are because of a discussion that we had on one

of the first days of class. That discussion was about inequality and the question we were trying to

answer was basically “Inequality of what?” The class came up with several answers like resources,

money, and education. The answer that I think is the most accurate and useful in terms of trying to

create an equal society is equality of opportunity. If we all have the opportunity to do what we want,

then ideally everyone would be happy or have nobody else to blame but themselves about their

situation. I thought about this concept a lot throughout the rest of the section.

Another thing that really interested me in this section was the idea of hidden rules. When we

read and talked about hidden rules it was as if they had suddenly become unhidden to me. I really did

not realize how many of these rules I abide by. It was also enjoyable to learn about how these rules are

different for each class. This is a concept that I knew about it, but did not really think about until we got

into the hidden rules readings and conversations. I feel that now that I actually know more about

hidden rules I am more likely to notice when they pop up in real life scenarios and I think that is

beneficial. This leads me to my next topic which is that this section is making me think about things

differently.

I really enjoyed how we looked at poverty and inequality in a different ways and from different

points of view. A good example of this was the checklists that we completed. I come from a middle

class background so the checklists for poverty and wealth seemed very out of the ordinary for me, but
they made me see poverty and wealth in different ways and I think that is very beneficial for real life

scenarios.

Overall, I really enjoyed this sections, aside from the Gini calculations, and I feel that the

information we are learning is beneficial for a lot of areas. I admit I was skeptical about this class

because it is an advanced Gen-Ed and I did not know how much information would actually apply to me.

However, I am now looking forward to the other sections. So far this class has made me think a lot and

that is probably the thing I enjoy most about it.