Giving Back

This week in class we had an activity where we decided what to do with the spare change brought in by the class. Our group came up with a few fun ideas before settling for the option that eventually won the popular vote, which was to give the money back to everyone. However, before we settled on this decision, we also thought about giving the money to the homeless guy on State Street, which led to further conversation bringing our group together with the symbolic convergence theory. We each shared our own stories about "State Street Steve" as he is called, and even though the conversation wasn't very productive toward our goal of deciding what to do with the money, it was fun to share stories with each other and bond as a group over a common theme. Oddly enough, another group chose to give the money to State Street Steve, so it appears we have a lot in common with our group members as well as other groups in the class. I thought the activity was a good way to practice decision making in our groups because it was more than just a scenario that was made up by the teacher; we were deciding what to do with actual money and the results of our decision would have a real impact on the class.

In other news, our project is taking shape very nicely. We are meeting tonight to put together our proposal and our presentation, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the other group members have to contribute. At this point we're all getting excited about helping people through our cell phone drive and seeing the results of advertising within the community.

-Melissa Evans