The Second Year Advocacy Forum was very interesting because I was able to learn a lot about different issues that affect us as college students and issues that affect our society on a daily basis.  The projects that I visited and asked questions for were “Fast Fashion’s Effect on the Environment,”  “Harm Reduction and Drug Education,” and “The Work Load of College Students.”  All of these topics were really interesting to learn more about, specifically with how these affect college students and how OSU specifically is making changes on campus to deal with these issues.  I thought that the project about Fast Fashion was the most interesting to learn about because of how much of an impact this has on the environment.  The fashion industry is one of the biggest influences on the environment and fast fashion plays a big role in that because of how quickly clothes are made and then thrown out when going through the cycle of fast fashion.  Fast fashion also affects how workers are treated in the industry because the product are made so quickly and sold at such a cheap cost.  It was interesting to learn about alternative ways to shop that won’t contribute to the fast fashion industry and better ways to get rid of old clothes that won’t negatively impact the environment.  OSU also has different ways of getting involved in this type of sustainability on campus which was cool to learn about in this project.  For my project next year for the second year advocacy forum, I would love to do a project similar to this one where I could focus on one aspect of sustainability or a specific issue that negatively impact the environment and research ways that could help change how this factor is affecting the environment.  For my project, I would also want to research how my topic affects colleges and how college students could help get involved at their college to limit the negative affects on the environment for the future and how sustainability options can become more well known on college campuses.  I think overall, this advocacy forum was really helpful to learn more about issues that we weren’t fully aware of before and how we can change or limit these issues in our community and on our campus.

Although redistricting is a large issue in many states that causes party imbalance and many issues when it comes to voting, another widely unaddressed issue is the imbalance of the two parties between the states.  This issue is caused by the populations of different states changing at different rates which cause the proportion of the House seats to not be fair over time.  The census for determining which states get which house seats only occurs once every ten years (the last one being in 2010).  This means that again, as populations shift differently between the states, over this period of ten years the number of representatives per state becomes unbalanced and the different parties are not fairly represented between the states.  Another issue that also arises is that the American citizens in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, etc. are not being represented at all in the House which further causes the balance between the parties to be unbalanced.
Although the number of representatives in the House is permanently set at 435 seats because of The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, there could be other ways to make the representation between the states more fair.  The total representatives in the House is at 441 because along with the 435  voting representatives, there are also 6 non voting representatives.  Five of these seats represent the District of Columbia and all of the U.S. territories with the last seat representing Puerto Rico which is a commonwealth.  One way to make reapportioning more fair between the states and to give all American citizens more fair and equal would be to either allow these 6 non voting delegates to vote in the future or to divide the 435 seats between the territories, commonwealths, and the District of Columbia as well as the states. This would allow the parties to be more equally represented if all citizens are now being represented since there is a significant part of the U.S. population living in these areas.
Another issues that can come from Congressional apportionment is that since the census is only every 10 years, the changing population in certain states can cause an unequal representation between the states and which parties are being represented in these states unfair over time.  The 2020 census is occurring in April, which means their could be another large shift in House seats before the next election at the end of 2020.  This could also cause a shift in how the presidential voting occurs in each state because of the census and the reapportionment.  A census that occurs more often that every ten years could possibly help to fix some of the Congressional apportionment issues in the states and also between the states.  Although reapportionment issues most likely won’t be fixed in the near future, bringing awareness to these issues could help to eventually find a system that will give equal and fair representation in office to every U.S. citizen.

For my mentor profile, I interviewed Vanessa Frank.  Vanessa is from a small town in Northeast Ohio called Geneva (by Lake Erie).  Vanessa is currently a biology major with a political science minor, where she’s on a pre-law track.  She is very interested in patent law and after Law School she most likely wants to find a job at a big pharmaceutical company (which is why she wanted to study biology as her major).  Vanessa chose to come to Ohio State because she went to a very small high school and wanted a much bigger atmosphere for college.  She also loves the city of Columbus and believes there are lots of opportunities here.  The transition to college was very difficult for her at first because she didn’t know a lot of people but she was eventually able to meet new people and adjust to college life.  Vanesssa also loves being involved where she is currently a part of the CHARGE club, a 4H mentor and she’s in a sorority.  She highly recommends joining a sorority because at first she didn’t think she would like it but for her it really helped her branch out and meet new people and also helped her academically as she has study groups with other girls in her sorority.  Vanessa’s favorite class that she’s taken so far at OSU was either integrated biology because it was very nature focused which she liked or she’s also very interested in the research lab that she’s currently taking.  Vanessa chose to become a PSL mentor because she became close with her mentor freshman year (they were both bio majors) and she wanted to be the same kind of leader for the freshman this year.  Her favorite activity that she’s done in PSL so far was going to the prison freshman year because she thought it was very interesting and a good learning experience.  Her advice to all first year PSLers is to work hard but also make time to have fun and to not put too much pressure on yourself for everything to be perfect.