On Wednesday, I was fortunate enough to attend an event with Professor Ken Roberts to speak about the polarization of American Democracy. Being an engineer, it’s very hard for me to participate in such discussions about politics, history, etc. So, it was so nice to take a break and take it back to my high school history knowledge. Professor Roberts had many interesting points and graphs on his slideshow. In particular, the geographic separation of the democratic and republican parties was interesting. The fact that most republicans were in rural areas and democrats were in urban areas brings out many interesting debates. The electoral college debate was hit most by this figure. This map and the fact that during the 2016 election the popular vote was won by the democratic party. This may be considered a major flaw in the election process due to the overrepresentation of many states. Towards the end of the event, we discussed about how social media and technology has been affecting politics. As a Computer Science major, you wouldn’t think your actions could be directly tied to politics. However, through apps and social media platforms, politics is promoted and discussed widely on these platforms. Actually, Twitter had announced its ban on political advertisements on its platform that day. Once again, it was amazing to branch out of my strict science and math curriculum to discuss history and politics with a renowned professor.