College is an experience where students are exposed to many different types of elements including getting out of one’s comfort zone, learning about an uncomfortable topic, or having to stand in class and present on something you never knew about before the assignment. I realized there was probably a pocket full of student who had never thought about the concept of hunger, homelessness, and poverty in the context and depth that this course has discussed the topic. On campus, I am involved in various organizations including a national business fraternity. This being said, the reason I minored in SOAN was to expose myself to another side of life than what business describes. Many of the people in my fraternity have never been exposed to the other side in a scholarly and academic setting. This has lead them to jump to conclusions about homelessness that may not necessarily be true but they just conform to what society states we should think and feel when it comes to the topic of homelessness.

I did my teaching project on was my last day volunteering at my internship and I came straight from doing my hours to complete the presentation. The reason I did this was because everything about my feelings of homelessness and how I felt about the internship would be prevalent in my mind. This would also lead me to be more passionate during my presentation as well. As I said, I invited the members of my business fraternity to come to my presentation. I did not tell them of anything that was going to happen so I made the dress casual to spark more attendance. I opened up the presentation describing the course and what we have learned over the semester. I then had them create a budget for a certain set of characteristics a homeless person might face. I gave them the prompt of being a part time cashier at Walmart making roughly $8.50 an hour for 20 hours a week that has two kids, one five-year old and one two-year old, no car, and no nearby family. Most of the reactions to this was amazement. They could not even understand how a person in this situation is supposed to attempt to get by. I gave them 5-10 minutes to try to create a budget for this person but they could not carry out that. At this point, I started my actual presentation in which I talked about the average perception of homelessness and what the reality of the situation is. I told the story of Shanesha Taylor (I wrote about her in one of my blog post assignments) and how even though she was trying to get a job, she still faced several burdens that would be difficult to overcome. I then gave the HUD definition of what homelessness is defined as. Additionally, I went on to describe what it would take to end homelessness and how everyone can do their part. I used this moment to talk about my internship, both the positive and negative aspects. The teaching project itself was more difficult than I had thought. This was because I had learned so much that it was difficult to convey even 5 percent of my knowledge.