Term Two Extra Credit - Alex Siber (PolySci)

Alex Siber 

1/18/13

Ms. Shapero

Political Science

Term Two Extra Credit

I have always taken a stance of relative suspicion towards the government of our nation.  I was as aware as one would presume a majority of the individuals in this country would be regarding the partisan politics, corrupt bribing, and the covert worldly role that the United States plays. However, I really did not have many facts to support those beliefs, aside from whatever knowledge I held on too from prior history courses. I was hoping that political science would allow me to develop a stronger foundation to base my opinions on, even if that foundation led me to no longer accept my previous feelings of suspicion. Fortunately, throughout both Term One and Term Two this course has opened my eyes to numerous aspects of our political system. Our recent focus on presidential expansion supplied an abundance of new knowledge that I was entirely unaware of. For instance, our close, analytical look at the steady rise in the size of the president’s cabinet proved to me that presidential power truly has been expanded. I never thought much about the rise of our leader’s power: I always saw our president--so long as his term followed Winston Churchill’s--as arguably the most powerful man in the world. Furthermore, I figured presidents who were Democrats would have larger governments than others, but the rising trend of presidential cabinets consists of prominent Republican leaders such as Reagan as well. 

This course also allowed me to interact with the election of a president for the first time in my life. While I was too sick to attend our polling day, I was fortunate enough to be able to assist in the calculations of the poll data along with my classmates. I wish I was able to experience the magic of election day in person, but I was extremely appreciative of the opportunity to analyze actually data that members of our own community collected. I look to participate in some way on Election Day in 2016, and I would like to thank Ms. Shapero for creating that special field trip for our class.