For the social sciences general education goal, I took SOCL 101, or Introduction to Sociology, with Dr. Pederson. Through Honors, this class was also linked with an Honors research seminar course, which can be found under my Honors courses as Honors 295. In sociology specifically, we focused on studying the lingering effects of the school closings on Prince Edward County through interviews with county residents, which will become part of Longwood’s oral archive collection. I’ve lived in Prince Edward County most of my life, so I had a lot of insight and opinions on this subject that my classmates did not, so I was glad to be able to add my two cents to our discussions about my home. In addition to learning more about Prince Edward’s history, we also learned about a variety of broader social issues, such as gender inequality and the War on Drugs. Part of this involved reading and analyzing sociology articles on topics of our choosing. I’ve attached my analysis of a study on the stigmas surrounding romance authors to express what I learned about critically examining social issues from many sides.