After watching the first couple groups present their projects and hearing about all the obstacles that have had to face throughout the semester was one of the most beneficial experiences that I have had in English class all semester. Knowing what obstacles, problems, and drama my own group went through, you kind of take a single minded approach and think that you are the only group that has to experience problems.
When I first decided to join the shuttle group, I had no idea how hard it would be. I really didn’t think too deep into the problem. I am positive that my other 3 members didn’t expect that we would run into as much problems as we did. It seemed liked no one wanted to talk to us, or help us out. Many people didn’t even see our limited shuttle hours as a problem. It was more of a be happy with what you are given type of thing. I think it’s ironic that as soon as we try to get a shuttle to improve campus safety, that we experience rapes. I don’t see how they don’t think that safety isn’t an issue. Especially when in doing research we are rated “highly unsafe” compared to surrounding campuses.
None the less, my heart goes out to both groups that presented on Tuesday. The fairgrounds group and the food group. Both problems that each group tried to fix were extremely good problems, and problems that directly affected our student body. It is very apparent that the here food is extremely bad for us (hence my newly found pants size), and just taking one look at the fairgrounds you can tell that the conditions are horrible. Hearing both groups talk, I started thinking about how much people have power at this college. The food group had to go through Aramark (which I could imagine would be extremely hard), and then there’s the fairgrounds group that never seemed to get any answers from anybody until the very end.
My group had so many issues trying to fix our problem, because everything dealing with the shuttle had to be negotiated between the school and Beiber Transportation, we were forced to go back and forth, and never seemed to get clear answers. It seemed easier to just refer us to the other. It was frustrating, because even though it wasn’t required to fix your problem in order to get an A, no one wants to fail at a task. It seemed like we weren’t getting anywhere. The worst news we probably got was when we realized that we simply do not have the money to add another loop. With all the budget cuts we really don’t have money for anything. The only thing we could do (like the food group) was make awareness. I believe that Kutztown needs to do a better job at making it sure that we are safe at campus. We do appreciate that we have access to the shuttle during the day, but when it comes to night time we need a shuttle. We just don’t have the option without the money.
Every group ran into obstacles, but every group had to overcome them. Creativity (obviously the underlying theme) was the key point to this whole assignment. Having traditional approaches just wasn’t going to work this time around. We were all challenged to convey our points, and try to get changes using teamwork and creativity.
Since this project is semester long, I’m sure that all groups are happy that this project is over and probably won’t pursue to fix the problems they have worked on. Even though most groups didn’t complete their task or achieve their goals, I think much more was learned. And we all gained a different experience. We are just college students that had a project, but there are people who have to fix problems every day. I would encourage them to tap into their creative side, because you never know how one day everything can change, how maybe one idea can inspire someone to help you along. You never know how beneficial being creative can be until you try.
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