I think I’m taking my college courses a lot easier than I expected I would but I’m still putting more effort into doing things than compared to my high school self. I’ve got to go out of my way to figure things out in City College and I’m not being held by my hand anymore. It still seems like it’s a little too easy for now which is concerning but I’ll just have to wait until it gets noticeably difficult for me.

What I like that’s in this course or more specifically this class, is the interactions we have as a
class. Everyone in the class is fun to talk to and even the professor is easy to talk to without worry.

The writing strategies that were put into Blackboard are also useful, there’s a list of words we
could use in exchange for other simpler words. I feel like the writing strategies is going to be
extremely useful in the near future of this class. I’m sure it can also be used for any other class
that I’ll have to write for, which is probably gonna be a lot of them.
I’m not too sure what exactly I want to see from this class because I don’t really know what to
expect from it. I would like more interactions with everyone cause it’s fun but work wise I’m not
sure what I’d look forward to. I’m sort of expecting more work about activism since that’s all we’ve been doing so far but it hasn’t been too long yet so I can’t say anything for sure.

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Retrenchment – Austerity – Tuition (1978-1992)
S – The article’s author is unknown, though the source of said article is CUNY Digital
History Archives.
P – The aforementioned article was written in order to share information about the past.
It goes further in-depth about what truly happened a few years after Open Admissions.
A – Just like the website, the article is available for those who wish to know more about
CUNY’s history.
C – A few years before the time this article is speaking about was the Open Admissions
finally allowing highschool graduates into CUNY colleges, though there have been
consequences for doing so & the article describes one of the issues after.
E – Despite promising many programs for financial aid for students in need, their
promises soon fell flat.
C – The article had used statistics & facts to show how dire things were.
A – Logos were consistently in use as they showed us the percentages of various
things.
T – Their tone was informative, not showing any favorable side to either one.

“Summary of “Retrenchment – Austerity – Tuition”
(1978-1992)

                          Michelle Tran


As Open Admissions finally began and allowed any and all highschool graduates to enroll into the CUNY colleges, they started imposing tuition on full-time CUNY students. That decision unfortunately led to a major decrease in the number of undergraduates enrolling in the following years. Open Admissions had tried to provide programs to assist the students in need but it simply wasn’t working. When the governor yet again increased the tuition by another $200, many students raised strikes at more than half of the CUNY campuses in response. CUNY students and faculty did also look at and undergo many projects and programs to help with things financially. Despite their efforts and protests against the ever-growing tuition, it continued on for roughly another 15 years.

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1. Pro Abortion 

2. There are many views on abortion, the loss of a potential life, the loss of the mothers life before the child, the costs and care to take care of a baby, reasons why the mother would have an abortion

3. Women are already looked down upon as the lesser gender for whatever reason and now we have to deal with the law telling us what we can or can’t do concerning our bodies. There’s so much stress on a woman in society, we even get paid less then men, how are we expected to take care of another living being?

4. Abortion is the act of losing a child, something that only the mother should be able to decide, not the law

5. I’ll start by laying out a mental image of a young woman with a unwanted pregnancy, saying how she can abort it and not worry, only to bring it crashing down by the hands of the law. Then ill discuss the court case that managed to make some states ban abortion, followed by the multiple possible reasons as to why the woman might not want the child. Could go down the sexual assault route, possible health concerns for the mother, not being able to work during the pregnancy and gain income, etc.

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Michelle Tran
Personal Essay

Picture this, a young woman recently discovers that she is pregnant, for some women they would be overjoyed to the point of tears, but for this woman it’s her worst nightmare come to life. Not only does she now have a new life to care for, it’s forcing her to stop pursuing her academic studies and/or any career goals. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem, I can just go to the hospital and make an appointment to abort the child, she thinks. What she doesn’t realize is that due to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade court case regarding the right to abortion, she can no longer do so because of the resulting abortion bans in her state. So unless she decides to drop everything she’s known and move to a pro-abortion state, shes stuck knee deep in a mess she can’t escape from.
Some people may argue that, ‘if you aren’t ready for children, you shouldn’t be having unprotected sex!’ Something they won’t consider is the fact there are many reasons as to why a woman wouldn’t want a child. She could’ve been sexually assaulted by a stranger, a friend, or even worse a family member. There are many cases of sexual assault on women per year, those women have the chance of getting forcefully impregnated, so obviously she would want to abort the child. Even knowing this some nasty people have the nerve to say things like, ‘well what were you wearing?’ ‘You shouldn’t be dressing like that if you weren’t trying to get someone’s attention.’ It shouldn’t fall onto the women to lay the blame on, it’s not against the rules to dress how you want when you want. What is completely unacceptable is to touch someone without their given consent. That aside, what if it was a young teenage girl who was pregnant but wanted an abortion? Why can’t they have an abortion? They can barely take care of themselves without a guardian, what about an entire newborn thrust into solely their care? They’re looked down upon for being teenage mothers but what choice are they left with other than to wait and give birth? This is just one reason why someone wouldn’t want a child. Of course there are other reasons such as simply not thinking it’s the best time for the couple or etc. Not only does society negatively view pregnant women wanting an abortion, they actually make it worse for the woman. If said woman had given birth and is a single mother, she would have much less finances to use on both her and the child. Women already receive less earnings from working the same jobs as men do, so to have to spend most of it on the necessities for the child would really eat away at the mother. She’d also have to leave the child with someone so she can go to work, either by paying someone or hopefully a family member or someone close.
Regardless of what people may think, abortion is absolutely vital. Yes, the woman in question is choosing to get rid of a potential life but there are reasons as to why they would make such a decision, they of all people will have to deal with the aftermath. That choice is the mothers and they should get the final say on something that is going to impact them for the rest of their lives. Getting an abortion itself is a last ditch effort, seeing as there are pills to take during the first 11 weeks of pregnancy. So if a woman truly wishes for a surgical abortion then this might be the last thing she went to. Other than not wanting a child at the moment, there are more serious cases of women possibly dying from giving birth. When it comes down to it, giving birth to a new life is extremely difficult and could take an entire day. There is a higher chance that women above the age of 35 could have health complications, to both her and the child. Chances are that most births over the age of 35 will lead to a C section birthing and the child risking higher chances of having Down Syndrome. The women in question could ask for a screening to find out before giving birth to see if their child would suffer from any specific diseases that could be inherited or Down Syndrome, and if they find out their child will have that illness/disease they would have to make the choice of whether or not they want that for their child.
As to why this whole debate is ongoing to begin with, it links back to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. At the beginning, the original outcome was the establishment of abortion as a constitutional right. However the case from nearly half a century ago had recently been overturned, making the majority of the public go into an uproar. The argument is that its to preserve the live of the child, leading into the pro-life vs pro-abortion debates. The right to abortion falls under the right to privacy but then again it has to be compared to other government interests that want to protect the life of the fetus and the maternity health. What it boils down to is what the government wishes to adhere to first, the mothers right to privacy, plus abortion, or to put the potential life of the fetus first. If we decide that the fetus in the mother is actually alive and conscious then that fetus would technically have human rights applied to it as well. Meaning that we can’t simply abort it. However, if we consider it as alive, if we take the fact that a fetus isn’t capable of having thoughts because of it’s still forming brain and body, then we can’t say for sure that the fetus is alive. It can go back and forth for years to come.
All in all, the choice is entirely up to the mother. Not a single other person should have a say of what they do with their bodies and lives, even if it’s the government. There are multitudes of reasons why the overturning of Roe vs Wade was a terrible outcome for many out there in the US. When the mother isn’t ready for a child but has to undergo the stress of carrying and taking care of said child for the rest of her life, it could end unfavorably for both parties. It would place both the mother and child in a desperate situation and it wouldn’t do any good to raise a child when they aren’t able to or any other reason.