Sexual education is something that is often avoided or pushed to the side. From my experience, in 5th grade we had a class that lasted for a couple weeks called “family life” were they would separate the boys and girls and tell us about our bodies and how they would change or continue to change in the coming years. Then, in 7th grade, we had a unit of sexual education in our science classes. In this class, we mostly talked about anatomy and biological processes in a very scientific way. The last required sexual education I remember having in school was when I took half a year of health in 9th grade. In this class we talked about everything from giving birth to sexually transmitted diseases to abusive relationships. The health teacher I had in high school was a man, and he definitely skipped some of the topics we were supposed to cover. We had a sub one day and she talked to us about contraceptives and the different options, which was actually very informative. All of the other health classes also had to watch a video of a woman giving birth, which we did not watch in my class. Throughout these years, for the majority, the attitude towards these classes is that no one wants to do it, but it is something that is required, and we just have to get through it. There was still a lot I didn’t know or understand after taking these classes, even about my own body. These classes don’t give children the wrong idea or influence them to make bad decisions, they will look for answers to their questions on their own, so it is best to give them the information in a safe way. Learning this information in an age-appropriate way and connecting it to real people’s lives will help protect kids and teens and help them make healthy decisions.

There should also not be certain children being left out of sexual education because they are seen as not needing to know the information. It is important for people with intellectual and physical disabilities to also learn this information because just like everyone else, they need to be able to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies, disease, and abuse. Denying them of this information will just serve to put them at a higher risk of these things. In school, I also don’t remember learning any information about sexual education for people in the LGBTQ+ community. This information should be taught along with everything else because there is no need to keep it from anyone. It could be beneficial for anyone to know, and it shouldn’t be kept from the people that need to hear it.

Colleges are always talking about how they strive for inclusivity and diversity. From my perspective, a lot has been done to make campuses more accessible to a lot more people, but there are still many changes that could be easily implemented to make college a more attainable place for more people. Looking at UMBC specifically, ramps have been added to different parts of campus, a lot of the big buildings have elevators, there are lots of accessible doors and bathroom stalls, and there are some accessible dorms on campus. I have also seen sign language interpreters in some of my lectures, and there is the Students Disability Services to make accommodations for students or help get them notes for class. While all of this is great for many students, this still makes the parts of campus that are accessible very limited. A lot more still needs to be done in order for UMBC to be a truly inclusive place. Many classrooms or lecture halls don’t have space for wheelchairs, lots of professors do not give much or any flexibility to students who need more time to complete assignments, and much of the campus is made up of hills with no way to get around them. There are probably many more things that I have not noticed as a person without any disabilities that exclude people with disabilities around campus. For that same reason, there are probably more accommodations that are available around UMBC that I don’t even know about. Although, this does show a flaw in the school that they are not making this information known for all students. Some more things that could be done to make UMBC more inclusive would be to have a more flexible attendance policy, make technology such as talking calculators or text-to-speech systems more available to students, and making sure that things that are already implemented on campus are maintained and kept up to date. Disability justice movements, like the one shown in the documentary Crip Camp, are a great way to help get a point across about what needs to be done at an institutional level. More people need to learn about what it is like to live with a disability in a world that isolates them because of it. Although, these kinds of accommodations and services should be provided to people without them having to prove themselves to other groups of people.

Arlie Hochschild, the sociologist who coined the term emotional labor, defines the term as work, for which you’re paid, which involves trying to feel the right feeling for the job through evoking and suppressing feelings. Depending on who you are or what your job is, the emotional labor of a job can be even more draining than the work itself. For example, jobs in customer service where you have to be attentive and polite to lots of customers within a day even when you are not treated so well, and jobs like nursing or caretaking where you have to take care of many people and deal with sickness or death on a daily basis while keeping your composure. This strain can be added to when also dealing with things such as anxiety or depression, which can make it harder to manage your own emotions.

From the time children are born, they start experiencing things that will shape them into the person they will become. One way to look at how different phenomena can have meaning in our experience is through gender. Boys grow up being told that they have to be strong or be a leader, while girls are told that they should be nice and helpful. Boys are praised for being loud and sharing their ideas, while girls are bossy or seen as annoying if they are too loud. Boys have to be tough and not show emotion, while girls are emotional and cry a lot. Through these experiences and interactions centered around gender, children get the idea that either if they are a boy, they should be a protector or have control and if they are a girl, they should be quiet and be people pleasers. It is through daily experiences that these ideas are introduced and maintained.