The second-year advocacy projects that I visited allowed me to understand what people my age are worried about. The advocacy projects that I choose to look at all had some type of interesting factors that appealed to me. Two of the advocacy projects that I looked like included voter information and voter necessity.

This topic is very interesting to me, because it allowed me to look on how to help solve a problem that effects my age group. Not many people who are my age want to be bothered with politics or learning about their candidates. For example, I would ask my friends who voted and a majority of them would say I voted for them because my parents voted for them or they were from the ‘right’ political party. Not only is there ignorance on candidates, there is not a lot of interest or education in the process of voting. For me the only reason that I voted was because I had parents who shown me how and what to do. I had parents who helped me register to vote and tell me where my polling place is. Many people my age their parents do not put that interest in voting and that unfortunately, rubs off. The advocacy projects allow me to see how to fight against voter ignorance and nonchalance.

The other topic I choose is a part of two interests of mine: art (dance) and history. Many people do not take either of those subjects to heart. Those are the classes in schools that many slack off or do not want to learn. The project was about the use of dance in diplomacy and how it was used in the cold war. I have never heard of this before, and thus it piqued my interest. The project’s topic shown me that things that many do not think are important are what holds the world together like dance, music, and study of history. These types of subjects have shown the humanity in a difference verse, and not just numbers on a paper.

The projects I chose were to allow me to find out ways I could help in advocating for these ideas. Such ideas include how to give voters the information on their candidates in a non-bias way, or places in which they can find this information on their desired candidates. I was also able to see the ways to help get voters to the polling place, and to help them understand how much 1 vote can count for any type of election. Both of these projects also stated that to help with voter knowledge and participation would be to educate the general public about their options. The dance advocacy project allowed me to see what something that is not a normal diplomacy action can allow for a common language between countries that seem to have nothing in common. Just like dance is a common language throughout the world so is the knowledge of the humanities and the necessity of that is something that is sorely lost in the American education system.

The projects have inspired me to look more into the subject of the importance on humanities in k-12 education. I am not sure if I will use that as my own advocacy project for next year, but I do know is that, that topic is of great importance. With the practice of reading over the projects, it has shown me that many people may age have something that they are passionate about and what others to know. Whether that issue be about voting or about the education of those in American schools, they want people to be passionate about the issue. They want others educated on the issue, so that others can understand the issue itself, and not just someone standing on their soap-box.

The government that was installed by the founding fathers was not meant to be a perfect democracy and therefore cannot be showcased as completely fair. There is not a way to make congressional apportionment fair because to change the system would be appeasing one viewpoint over the other, thus unfair. One can change how the representatives are apportioned, but there is no way to do that without irritating either sides of the political spectrum. The examples of unfairness are the extreme in American society, such as the example of District of Columbia. These examples are where many people have a hard time grasping that the Constitution was put into place to protect the idea of government. The constitutional apportionment of the state representatives was put into place to appease the larger states at the time. When creating the constitution that main argument was whether who had better representation, and thus a compromise was formed to try and make things fair. This compromise is now the root for whether this argument exists. To make the apportionment fair would reverting back to the beginning of the United States. The changing to make everyone equal would be inherently unequal because of the polarized two-party system in the United States.

The changing of the apportionment in the House, no matter which way it is done will not end up supposedly fair. Certain states that are known to be one way and have a lot of representative power, and if that power is supposedly threatened one way or another there is a big animosity between the groups. The way to change this though would be to not support hyper-partisanship and allow for an indiviual identity, but that it is impossible in the type of government that the United States is under. To keep the same amount in the house right now, it would be impossible to take numbers away and give to other states that are smaller, because this is not the system of representation in the United States. Such states like Texas and California have more power because of their ever-growing population, but states that are not growing like Wyoming do not have that power. The main caveat to that is that each and every state has power in congress with their two senators.

In conclusion, there is no way to change the House apportionment to make the representation fair in judgement. The country was founded on was to have others make governmental decisions by an intelligent peer. A compromise was made in which each type of states has some type of say. In the house there may be a disproportional amount of power, but each state has two senators. When trying to change a fundamental way that the United States is ran would be impossible in the political climate of today. Each polarized political party will view the change as a way for the other party to gain more power, and not seeing it as different people receiving representative power. The extreme examples of this include Washington DC, these people of DC know that they will not get a representative or senator because it is laid out in the constitution. To make government fair is an impossible task with split political parties, and thus trying to make apportionment fair now would do the exact opposite.

Politics, Society and Law Peer Mentor Interview:

Becoming a peer mentor takes a certain ability that not many people possess. In PSL, I have noticed that each of these mentors possess this sought-after trait. My mentor, Emma King is someone who  was a passion for helping others, which is showcased in her interview with me. She is on a pre-law track because she knew at an early age that she wanted to improve the overall human condition or in other words; help others. As many pre-law tracks she loves to argue, and is passionate about what she believes in. She is apart of the mock trial team at OSU, which allowed her to meet people with similar interests. Last summer she want to Paris, and this enhanced her travel bug. She hopes to one day go to Thailand, and eat some of her favorite foods (Pad Thai). She has a big interest in psychology (which is one of her majors) and loves music especially sad songs. She also loves listening to One Direction, which was something that was similar to me. My interview with Emma allowed me to connect with other people that have different interests and views, except when it came to One Direction.