My influence to research the maintenance of friendships was Matt, and the class. During one of our classes, I shared my community idea during an exercise called "peeling the onion". I shared that I was struggling to relate my community to the world, and Matt suggested that I look into how I plan to maintain my friendships and connections that I have made in my community. This helped me to recognize that many people could benefit from learning how to maintain friendships.
This research is also important to our class because it relates to where I am going in my life. In the future I hope to maintain my friendships that I have made thus far in college, as well as the friends I have back home, and at other Universities. When thinking about where we are going I think many people automatically think about their careers or what their next job will be, but I believe it is also important to consider the friends and people we want in our futures.