Thus far, my project has been largely based on my personal experience. I’ve gone through my campaign putting myself as someone who would’ve benefited if freelancing was legal for international students. By chatting with other international students, I saw that many had similar experiences with wanting to freelance but, of course, everyone’s situations were different. I understood that our experiences have developed a specific perspective on the issue, and although I want to make my point of view as compelling as possible, I know I now have to address this as a bias.
As recommended, I need to develop the counterargument to my positions if I want to have a holistic coverage of the issues addressed. I will also cut back a bit on how much I reference my personal experience in the issue to reduce how the bias comes across.
In the coming weeks, I will also narrow down what I’m accomplishing by the end of the term. Although I would love to create a short documentary and a zine, time would be better spent if I focus on a more achievable deliverable, so, as David suggested, I will create a short advert highlighting what my campaign is about. I don’t know how I had not thought about that before, but an advert is a great way where I can encapsulate research and personal stories along with graphics and would be functional for showing and sharing what I am doing.
As we come to the last weeks of the course, I have increasingly looked at my project as something that goes beyond the coming weeks. As a survey and a petition go up, I know that they’ll need time to reach their effectiveness, but they can be up and showcased at the end of the course. A big hurdle I’ve encountered as I’ve been working on the survey and petition, however, is that I largely rely on other people to put my assets out there. For example, my petition for the UK Parliament will include data from the survey I’m conducting, but the survey had to be overlooked by an expert that was quite busy to get back to me promptly, so the survey launch got delayed, which will also delay when the petition goes up with the survey’s data.
I wanted to move forward quicker, but when I did so in the past I made a couple of mistakes that could’ve been avoided if I had waited for an expert’s review. So I’ve reflected that things like a smooth and successful campaign take their time, and that’s okay! What I care about is reaching my goal of legalizing self-employment for Student visas, however long it takes.