Senior Project Reflection

Throughout this entire (extremely long) senior project process, I believe that I have

gained lots of insight about a topic that I became extremely familiar with. I was really glad that I

was able to share the information that I learned with others, even if it was just a small group of

people, because I believe that this topic is extremely overlooked. Getting information first hand

from people of short stature was one of my favorite parts of this project because it allowed me to

really understand the reality of dwarfism. It was extremely eye-opening because I learned the

real life struggles that people of short stature encounter almost every single day.

Although I enjoyed my project and thought that it was an important topic for me to

explore, one of the major drawbacks was that no one took my project seriously. Whenever I

shared with a friend what my topic was, they usually would laugh. Some people would even

point out other students in the hallway that were on the shorter side and suggest that I interview

them just because they are short. Since this topic is so overlooked, it was not really taken

seriously by my peers. This honestly just shows the importance of my project even more, as no

one really sees this as a real issue. I truly think that the lack of exposure to people with

achondroplasia in society has caused people to see dwarves as something from a fairytale book

rather than real people.

My overall takeaway from this project was emphasizing the idea of not judging a book by

its cover, and not being afraid to correct someone or educate someone. People using slurs like the

m-slur, may not know the derogatory meaning behind the word, and speaking up about it hurts

no one and educates others. Moving forward I will make a point in taking interest in others that

may be different from me before I make judgements. Going into a conversation with a stereotype
does no one any good, so it is extremely important to go into every new interaction with an open

mind.