It was another great in class-session in the Life Course Scholars Program. We began class discussing our thoughts, experience, and feedback from our site to the LGBTQ center in Hillcrest. Most of the class shared that they had a great experience, and thoroughly enjoyed hearing the diversity of ideas about building a better age-friendly community. Furthermore, my peers shared how ideas differed from other site visits, in that they were influenced socioeconomic factors and life experiences of people. One idea that was seen to differ from others was the issue of affordable and accessible transportation. For Hillcrest, their community is known to have more developed public transportation routes, unlike in La Jolla. However, the residents of Hillcrest expressed that it's often not practical as it takes too long to get to places. Rather than accessing to increase public transportation, like the residents in La Jolla, expressed, they suggested subsidized fares for ride-sharing services as they are much more practical and provide a quick, and accessible means of transportation for the elders. One of our classmates shared that his experience wasn’t as delightful as the rest of the class. This was due to the fact that one of the members of the community center, was expressing thoughts that were indicative of aging is not a pleasant experience, and the activity we are doing wouldn’t help it. Our classmate did a good job at listening to this person and shared that at the end of the event the member was thankful for our visit.
We then participated in a detailed conversation and discussion on our readings that dealt with the diversity of the aging experience, especially in regards to family dynamics. Each passage brought about the different messages that related to family and aging, that we as a class could relate to and share our experiences with. We ended the class being able to work on and get feedback on our eventual posters of our Healthy Aging Project. I can’t this wonderful course is almost coming to an end, but I know I will continue to use the knowledge and motivations of bettering the aging experience across the life course into my future endeavors.
We then participated in a detailed conversation and discussion on our readings that dealt with the diversity of the aging experience, especially in regards to family dynamics. Each passage brought about the different messages that related to family and aging, that we as a class could relate to and share our experiences with. We ended the class being able to work on and get feedback on our eventual posters of our Healthy Aging Project. I can’t this wonderful course is almost coming to an end, but I know I will continue to use the knowledge and motivations of bettering the aging experience across the life course into my future endeavors.