At the beginning of the semester I had an outsider perspective. Before my first meeting,  I can remember exactly how I felt which was nervous that I was not going to be accepted and welcomed. From the outside looking in, the group was intimidating, close knit, and maybe not very welcoming. My reasoning behind these feelings was based on a preconceived notion that groups who deal with sensitive topics such as people living with disabilities can be cautious when accepting newcomers. Something that also crossed my mind after I attended my first meeting with the group was the able bodied kids were only in the club because it looked good on their transcripts, and not to actually be involved. That being said, I had done a lot of research on the Best Buddies community, but I did not have a chance to experience it. At the beginning of my studies, I believed following this community throughout the semester would bring me a new outlook on the community, and it did.

Over the course of this semester, I learned about a program called Best Buddies. My initial thought about studying a community throughout the entire semester was how tedious it would be. I had quite the opposite experience with the Best Buddies community at Fayetteville High School. Throughout the process, I learned more than I originally expected by observing as an insider as well as an outsider. Observing from  these two different perspectives was confusing and contradicting at times, but the further I progressed in studying the community, I began to have more of an insider perspective than an outsider one. At the end of the semester I came to the conclusion that by studying the community from both perspectives, I was able to learn different things about the community as well as have a better understanding of the community.