These last two weeks as a Life Course Scholar have been rewarding. Meeting everyone face to face and being able to give back to our community is an experience I do not take lightly. I wasn’t sure what we were doing when we arrived at the senior center, and when I figured out what our involvement was going to be, I was excited. I am hoping to pursue some sort of career with geriatrics, hopefully as a Physician Assistant. I think it was an informative beginning of the session on Wednesday and furthered the importance that older adults have adversities that we often do not think of. On a personal note— one of my close relatives is homeless (by choice) and being able to give back to my community through service brought me closer to him and gave me not only more perspective of what challenges he faces, but also was something personally difficult to do. Related to course readings, these types of community projects are related to ageism interventions. By exposing college aged students to their community where there are different forms of older people gives us direct insight into what types of policies are being held and how age looks across the board. It is very eye opening to compare the way my grandparents aged, to the way my parents are aging in their late 50’s, and how it looks different across generations and economical status’. In seeing different community aspects and retirement homes, it has opened my eyes even further to policies in place that can potentially deepen the bride between people and put those more susceptible to oppressive laws. I look forward to the coming weeks where we get to work more closely in our community again.
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AuthorMikayla Pratt is a Human Development Science major with a specialization in Healthy Aging. She is from Archives
March 2022
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