Winters-+Reading+Response+2

Stephanie Winters Winters- Reading Responses ====Nathan has many different views about the community life on campus in the second reading of "My Freshmen Year". She points out many different things that I agree with. She talks about how students don't get involved with the activities that are set up for them. I can see the same thing in the Bloomsburg Community. Many events planned by different groups are ignored. For example the events constructed by the CA's often have a low turn out rate. This is the same for the campus in which Nathan is studying at. These are optional activities that many students may say they will attend but in the long run end up doing something else. I also agree with Nathan when she talks about students having a small close group of friends who they interact with. I believe this may be the reason for the lack of participation in some of the group community activities planned by different groups. Students tend to make a few very close friends and hang out exclusively with them. I think that students do like to socialize with a large number of students but when it comes down to it they have a few close friends who they are always with. One thing that I am skeptical about is her observations about eating. She points out the idea that many of the non-white students took their food to go and called the lunchroom a white space. I believe that this may just be a coincidence that she observed after realizing most of the students in the room were white. She may have jumped to this conclusion and not considered other factors that may contribute to this. ==== In the second part of the book //Ethnography// the author talks about how ethnographers can only act the part of a certain group and not actually become them. The juggling analogy helps the reader to understand what the author is talking about. I like how the author talks about a certain part of ethnography then proceeds to give and example of how it works using juggling. For example when the author talks about acting like part of the group. The author mentions that although Molly is learning how to juggle she wont actually be part of the juggler who she is studying. The story about the turtle and the frog was a good way to explain why ethnographer only address certain questions. It helps us to understand the idea that they tend to tell us about what the certain subject is and not what it is not. The author also does a good job at explaining etic and emic perspectives. Overall this chapter was a lot easier to understand than the first chapter. As to book goes on the information becomes easier to relate to.