Micro-Activity # 3:Brainstorming Discourse Communities

The discourse community that I am focusing on is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). For those who know the MTA is an organization itself whose goal is to create transit for the public benefit. I think the problem with this discourse community is that it doesn’t hold all students to the same standards. For example students who go to public school, their education is funded by the government and they receive a metrocard to travel from home to school at no cost, college students who mostly receive aid by the government do not receive this help from the MTA. In ¨MTA transit fares are set to increase as 5 percent bonus is eliminated. Here’s why.¨ by Data journalist Raeedah Wahid , The article solely focuses on the increase on the Bears of the MTA primarily highlighting the issue that college students do not receive financial support from the MTA in New York City. in the article it is stated, ¨In prior years, Columbia has not offered MTA rider benefits or discounts to students traveling via subway. In fact, many private peer institutions in New York like NYU, The Cooper Union, and Fordham University, do not explicitly offer benefits to students who rely on MTA transit¨. This quote from the article supports the  fact that college students are not receiving additional support from the MTA despite their large increase in fares.  Another source of research that I used in reference to this Discourse Community was  interviews conducted.  For my interview I interviewed a near to college graduate  named Skyla. Skyla Attends a  public CUNY College and majors in nursing. Close to her last year of receiving her bachelor’s she has generally explained to me that since the beginning of college she has been taking the  Public Subways and that prices have only been increasing. She explains that although the school does not fail to partially help her intuition and books, buying a MetroCard for the week or even the month holds an expense that hinders her because as a college student she has to pay for Essentials such as supplies, books, and her personal expenses from home.   She believes that it is unfair that the state can provide her younger siblings with a free MetroCard to go to high school but she has also received in the past but that she can’t receive to go to college. The main solution that I have seen from my two sources of research would be for the MTA to Grant all students free Transportation indefinitely.

In the article ¨Why Don’t We Get Student Discounts on MetroCards?¨ by Columbia Spectator it states, ¨“Word on the street was that they had some sort of [discount] system, which they don’t,” Ramaswamy said. At one point, NYU enabled students to purchase regularly priced MetroCards with their equivalent of our Flex points. It is unclear whether there would be student support here for such a change¨. I chose this article because it is rather old with the sole purpose of being able to  so that this problem is not just a current problem but it is also a problem that has been happening for a very long time.  The quote basically pinpoints that the MTA is ¨ supposedly¨  supposed to be giving out a student discount but students have been feeling to receive it up since the year of 2014.  Students have been complaining since then that they have to pay a large amount of money for fares , so just imagine since then how much fares have been going up.Students have been  over charged to get to and from school. All students should have the equal opportunity to not have to worry about being charged an excess amount to get to school and to get home from school.