KingReadingResponse2

__**My Freshmen Year**__

I enjoyed reading this just as much as I did last week. I can relate to many things that are going through Rebekah Nathan's head during her experience. Just as she is going through a very huge transition, I am going through a huge transition as well. While I was reading about her experiences, I found myself saying "I remember doing that!" For example, when Nathan was talking about having to do ice breakers I recalled how during my first week or two here at Bloomsburg I had to go through very similar exercises. I find them to be awkward at times, but I think that they are very beneficial to help people reach out and socialize. I also could relate to the part where the RA of her floor would try to get all the people who lived on the same floor to engage in activities together. My CA has done very similar things but they haven't worked that well. Everyone on my floor talks to each other and are very polite but only a few of us tend to really hang out with each other. I like to keep my door open though so people who walk by always feel as though they can pop in and say hello. It's strange that I don't know a lot of people on my floor because we live in such close quarters. But all in all, things at college do not have seemed to change that much. Although this took place in the 1990s, a little over 20 years later we as college students have to endure many of the same things as Nathan did then, regardless of her age.

__**The Mind at Work**__

I found this reading selection to be a lot more interesting than last week's selection. The introduction showed a very good perspective of the majority of families today. Although the author's mother did not enjoy her job she still continued to go to work every day and worked through her exhaustion to get the money to provide for her family. I believe that this was a very accurate depiction of families in today's world. I know personally my Dad does not particularly enjoy having to travel every week to California or anywhere else to go to meetings for his job but he does it to provide for our family. I can see that prices keep raising and they don't seem to be going down anytime soon so it is definitely hard for people to obtain the money they need to take care of themselves or other people in their family. I cannot even claim to know all the expenses that owning a house and paying multiple bills ads up to because I am not at that point in my life. However, even just being a college student it is a struggle with money because now that you are living on your own, you need to provide for yourself, which is difficult. I also could definitely see the author's point when he addressed the fact that people who work feel a sense of accomplishment and purpose in life. I would refer to the workforce as a "community", which is just like how Nathan talks about the college experience. I would definitely say that I am part of a community at Bloomsburg University and I can completely relate to that sense of community addressed in both reading excerpts.

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