From: Francisco Sanchez 

I think there are several things about the class that have made it really
interesting and totally different from any other class I have taken.  First,
it has helped people decide what they want to do in the future for careers,
and isn't that what college is all about?  During the past three years, I have
seen people come into the group who have gotten a more realistic taste of what
social scientists really do and from this experience they decided if they were
really interested in pursuing something in this field or not.  For example, I
am not sure that people like Jen or Tony really wanted to pursue a PhD in
sociology when they started the group (I am not sure about this though) but
through their participation in the class have gotten chance to see it really
is.  On the other hand, people like me that were interested in sociology have
realized that they would not want to do something like research for the rest
of their lives, not that it hasn't been interesting.

I think what I have learn in this class will also be very beneficial to me in
my career as well to my personal life. For example in business, they are
always trying to understand how people in different socio-economic situations
purchase.  I think the class has also helped me become more analytical, by
always forcing me to look at all the different factors that might make a
difference and what their effect might be.

 Finally, I think the best experience I have had has been writing the urop.
It gave me the opportunity to do real research, at least more than other
classes.  Most of the classes I have taken basically tell you to write a paper
and you go out and read a bunch of books, synthesize what they said, and
regurgitate it onto a piece of paper.  With the urop paper, I got to analyze
what other people had written, agree or disagree with them, and then use my
research to back up my position.  I think this kind of experience really
helped me to find out if that was what I really wanted to do or not.