By Mary O'Day
Out of all the classes I have taken thus far here at Framingham State, I feel as though this class is going to have the biggest impact on my life for two main reasons. One way in which this class is changing me is it is making me realize why I chose sociology as a major. For a while, I had been questioning my decision of choosing sociology as my major, mostly because I was stressed about finding a good job. In the short amount of time that I have been in this class, I believe working in a nonprofit organization is a job I think I would love. For my whole life, I have always been the type of person that wants to help people and for the last few years, I did not know how I would be able to really help people being a sociology major. This class made me realize that there are countless ways in which my willingness and desire to help people can be accomplished by working in a nonprofit organization.
Another way in which this class is changing me is because it made me realize that working with children affected by the opportunity divide is something I would be interested in doing. In order for you to understand what brought me to this realization, I will give you a brief background on my life. I would say my family and I are a part of the middle class. I grew up in a very small, majority white town. I had the privilege of growing up in a house with my brother, sister, mom, dad, grandmother, and aunt. In addition, my town had a very good public-school system in which I believe 90% of my classmates attended college after graduation. All of the things I just discussed above are things I overlooked my entire life because they were so normal to me until fairly recently.
When I started taking sociology classes (Nonprofit Giving in particular), I realized just how lucky I was to be so fortunate to have all that I have. One of the most important things I have gotten from this class thus far is there are so many people in this world that have not been as fortunate to grow up in a situation like mine and this became very apparent when we learned about the opportunity divide. Learning about the opportunity divide has changed me because it has made me realize I really want to help kids that are being negatively affected by it. I would love to help kids gain access to the resources that will help them overcome the hardships they may face because of the opportunity divide. I want to help children have opportunities that they otherwise would not have because of their background.
Although I could go on and explain many more ways in which this class is changing me, the two major ways this class has changed me the most is it has allowed me to finally realize why I decided to become a sociology major and it made me realize I want to help kids that are negatively affected by the opportunity divide. For me to already, after only roughly four weeks of class, be able to explain two serious ways in which this class has changed my life is something pretty special. I am eager to see how else this class is going to change not only me, but others in the remaining months that we have.
