Alyssa Lopez

A large part of working for University Housing is a semester long mandatory course for all student staff called UC 421. During this course, future staff members are introduced to social justice concepts, such as social identity, privilege and oppression, and the intersectionality of identities that play into the interactions staff will ultimately have with the students living in their communities.  This social-justice intensive class is a big eye-opener to most all students who take it, and I appreciated learning with others and understanding concepts together.

Our class was divided into groups whose responsibility was to research and present on a social inequality on our own campus.  After talking about our experiences, the three of us decided to research how marginalized students’ experiences in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields play out for college students.  Because of my narrow perspective as a woman in a predominantly female-populated major, I was unaware of just how the stereotypes and discrimination affected even close friends.  To best research this topic, we looked into different studies on students in the STEM field and reports of how they fared in college courses and fields historically dominated by white men.  In particular, we chose to focus on how race and gender stereotypes play into students in the STEM field.  Our group interviewed multiple individuals to better understand their experiences first-hand, which was good practice in engaging with others and critically thinking about how identities play into everyday life.  Overall, we were very happy with our final presentation, and enjoyed the discussion that we were able to have with our concluding questions, especially as they related to our jobs as student staff in the residence halls.