The thesis of this essay is how the experience of college students managing type 1 diabetes correlates
with their daily lives and studies. The intended audience is anyone who reads this study and anyone
interested in the particular subject. The things being defined are who the study is on and what
background they hold. The names and ages are given of the students, and there are many comparatives
for how their parents react to their disease and when they were first diagnosed, versus how other
students view diabetes and how they have to monitor their bodies on their own terms without their
parents watching over and providing assistance.
I feel enlightened from reading this. There were many things I didn’t know about diabetes and I hadn’t
ever considered how it would effect a college student’s life. Statements that I agree with and can
understand well include how different diabetes management is at home compared to being away at
college, and how many people, especially students, don’t understand the struggle of people with
diabetes and how much it adds to one’s daily life. Something that I found interesting was the students’
one words in how they perceive their monitoring and blood sugar levels. One of the subjects, Ryan, said
that he sees his diabetes as something that could make his life shorter if he doesn’t do the correct things
to manage it. Another subject, named Courtney, feels that she should keep managing her diabetes well,
but she doesn’t want to live with so many restrictions, such as not being able to consume a particular
thing on occasion.
The essay is rather effective because it followed along with the thesis and had an intriguing study stated
throughout it. It focused on each subject of the study and as the author posed questions to the
students, they gave the answers back to the readers in the study. The author explained how each
student has to monitor their blood sugar before meals and before tests, and usually before any task that
may be rigorous or require a lot of focus for a prolonged amount of time. It was described that the
students wouldn’t be able to focus correctly on something if their blood sugar was either too low or too
high, and that they needed to figure out the amount of carbs they consumed so that they could
calculate how much insulin they would need to take either immediately or later. The author gave
effective photos showing the students in their daily lives and dramatizations or scenes of what managing
diabetes looks like for them. One student described diabetes as “tripping down the stairs and you have
to walk all the way back up,” meaning that it is a lot harder to control and come back from when it falls
out of control. While many questions were asked, I have a few that I thought of while reading, and that
being how their diabetes affects how they sleep and if they found it better to consume foods with less
sugar or less carbs in general.
Writing an ethnography essay seems both different and similar to essay formats I’ve had in the past.
There are people that are studied and real questions and quotes posed and given, but the way this kind
of essay is set up seems a lot more intimate and friendly. An ethnography has research done on subjects
and people based on the topic of the essay, and this is legitimate research that is formal and proper but
the essay is set up in first or second person perspective given the quotes form the subjects in the study.
I’m confident about the research I’ve done in the past and know that a new format will be more
challenging on its own. I feel that I may initially struggle with making the essay more reader-friendly
than previous writing assignments I’ve completed before.