Daarstad: Decoding politics through columns

General Opinion Graphic

Haley Daarstad, Columnist

Politics and social problems are a hot topic in the media today. For myself, understanding politics and social issues are significant to me. So, as a columnist, I hope to help people gain a better understanding of political and social problems by looking at different issues that are not discussed regularly. My weekly columns will be exploring the political realm by decoding issues of policy and government institutions. Other ideas include examining social justice problems, both domestically and internationally. I will connect these issues and events to our local community.

Junior year in high school, I never looked at what was going on in our world. That was until I had a teacher that required class discussions of what was happening in the news. These conversations helped me understand the importance of recognizing what is going on in our world, both politically and socially. I began to enjoy reading about politics and social problems and having discussions with people about these issues. My newfound interest in politics pushed me to choose my major, political science. I want to explore our political system and gain a better understanding, especially environmental problems. In addition to political science, I am also majoring in digital communication arts because media plays an essential role in how people understand political and social issues. The power of media to shape how people think about our government inspired me to choose politics as the central theme for my column.

Journalism is a powerful tool used to communicate information to the public and to help people understand what is happening within our government. I want to use this tool to communicate with my peers about politics and social problems. My columns will provide insight through my perspective of our current state of politics and social issues to offer the people with a clear understanding of these issues. 

I genuinely enjoy learning and researching topics that impact our daily lives and discussing my findings with people. Discussing these topics are important because ignoring them is not making our world any better. Writing these columns, I hope to create discussions surrounding the issues I have written. While I am planning on writing about politics and social problems, I plan to also write columns about sustainability and environmental issues, since they are also a passion of mine. In the end, I hope that the people reading my column this year will learn something new.