Got Issues?

1. In your journal make a quick list of issues that have provoked disagreement between groups of people in your hometown or local community. (Light rail, Vikings Stadium, Homeless Youth…)

Should taxes be increased to build/ renovate schools?

Should noise wall be build by a freeway?

Should kids be using iPads at schools?

Should preschool be free?

Should oil tankers be allowed to go through Twin Cities?

2. Make a quick list of issues that have provoked disagreements on your college campus,and between groups of people in your home state. (Smoking on campus, Campus safety…)

Should collage education be free?

What is the cause of an increasing dropout rate in MNSCU?

Should guns be permitted on Normandale campus?

Is sexual violence an issue in MNSCU campuses?

Should colleges have a designated place for Muslim students to pray?

3. Think about issues—local, statewide, regional, national—that have touched your life or could affect you in some way in the following areas:       environmental, health care, civil rights, business, education, crime or sports. Make a quick list of questions within these areas you wonder about. For example, Will I be able to afford to send my children to college in twelve years?

Is our society sicker because of pollutions?

Why people often demonize a single payer system when it comes to health insurance?

Will my family members be profiled while traveling because of their religion?

Will new travel restrictions make us safer or create more terrorism?

Should gender selection be allowed?

How many after-school sport activities for kids is enough? 

4. Jot down a list of classes you are taking this semester. Then make a quick list of topics that prompt disagreements among the people in thefield you are studying or plan to study. For instance, in political science, people continue to debate whether the electoral college is useful anymore or not.

Macroeconomics

What’s better for U.S. economy-free market or command economy?

Are immigrants helping or hurting U.S. economy?

5. Write for seven-ten minutes beginning with one of the questions/issues you raised in the listing prompts. Write about when you first began to be concerned about the question, how you think it might affect you and what you currently understand are the key questions this issue raises. Do you have tentative feelings about it? What would you hope to discover through research?

Are immigrants helping or hurting U.S. economy? 

I am an immigrant so this issue is very important to me. During the election season immigrants were called rapists, criminals, and were considered as enemies of American people who are stealing their jobs. That’s when I started thinking about this problem. I am obviously biased. I think that we are assets for the economy- we are very motivated to work hard and achieve something. Immigrants start businesses on a higher rate than non-immigrants, although because of complicated and very limiting immigration process this rate is shrinking. I would like to look at the arguments of people who think that immigration is bad for economy and address it in my essay. I hope to discover that we are helping this economy. I am still debating if I should focus on legal on illegal immigration or both.