Joseph VanBuhler

PS 1010
Professor Buccellato
27 April 2016
Another Reflection, This Time on the Final Paper
Ive never been fond of group work and this project epitomized it.
Constructing a coherent, meaningful final paper from (in our case) five independent
and varied sources is no easy or enjoyable task. That said, I feel Ive at least
marginally grown as a result of the experience.
The first thing that hit me was the incredibly expansive nature of blight. Prior
to this project and the research that led up to its coalescence, I had known that
blight was bad in Detroit. However, over the course of actually crunching the
numbers myself and getting a personal feeling for the breadth of their magnitude I
realized that the problem of blight is much larger and more potent that I had
anticipated; I was blown away by the sheer length of time that would be necessary
to eliminate blight at the civic level.
That said, I dont see myself pursuing my research in blight in the future for a
number of perfectly legitimate reasons. Firstly, Im an Electrical and Computer
Engineering major, and as such I dont see myself as having many academic
incentives for studying blight further. Another reason is that after my extensive
studies of the issue of blight, I have discovered that I am simply uninterested. After
learning the depth of resources and time necessary to ameliorate the problem, I
determined that if I ever did attempt to solve a political science quandary, I would
solve one that stirred a particular blend of emotions within myself, such as that of
preventing animal cruelty; I recently had a strong emotional reaction to the
discovery of cruel and fruitless testing being performed on dogs, and honestly
stopping that is far more important to me than blight removal.

VanBuhler 2
Regarding what I learned from the process of group work, Id drink my weight
in pop before claiming to enjoy it, and I hate pop with a vitriolic passion. Knowing
my evident bias against the concept, it shouldnt surprise one that my distaste for
group work only intensified after having to help coordinate a project of this
magnitude concerning a topic for which Id lost all emotional investment. Entering
into forced collusion on an issue for which you have no passion and from which you
experience no benefit, either socially, academically, or spiritually, short or long
term, is a waste of precious time and energy.
Ive developed several skills in this course, and they are all applicable to my
life. Showing up to Monday lectures only to fake enthusiasm for an hour and a half is
an invaluable life skill that will greatly help me when sitting through mind-numbing
staff meetings someday in the not-so-distant-future. Writing a paper on a topic for
which I no longer have any real interest is necessary for playing school and
getting ones degree so that I dont end up having to flip burgers for a living
because I couldnt me sell my labor in a competitive capitalistic marketplace.
Learning to adapt when scheduling problems arise is necessary to keep ones sanity
and avoid lighting oneself on fire and hurling oneself bodily from the nearest
precipice (consider the fall of the Steward of Gondor Lord Denethor in the Lord of
the Rings). Finally, the ability to keep ones sense of humor while dying inside at an
exceptionally prolonged cluster/amalgamation of road-related metaphors is a skill
that will never not be useful (Alright, I actually didnt mind the metaphors all that
much; that said, keeping a positive and upbeat attitude is an extremely beneficial
skill to have, and one that I feel this course has helped me grow).