I have been in the scholars program, Earth, Life, and Time, for the past three semesters and now after completing the program I have looked back and realized this has been a life changing experience. Before entering the University of Maryland, as Biochemistry major, I did not expect to be in Earth, Life, and Time (ELT) to be a complement to my major. However, participating in ELT has proved me wrong. ELT has informed me with current scientific issues and enlightened me on the past to determine how we got to where we are has human species. The program fit in well with my major, many of the topics went over in the lectures correlates exactly with my other science classes that I am taking and have taken in the past. In fact, when Professor Holtz and Professor Merck were teaching us about evolution I was taking Biology 106 at the same time, which is about basic principles of biology with special emphasis on organismal, ecological and evolutionary biology. This helped me a lot because both professors went in depth about evolution allowing me have a clear understanding of evolution, as a result it helped me get an “A” in Biology 106. We even did small in-class projects to help understand topics we went over in lectures more clearly. I liked this a lot because of the interaction and teamwork it took to understand the subject at hand. More specifically, my favorite group activity was the Mr. Potato head project that demonstrated different type of evolution. This project gave me a different viewpoint on how to look at evolution, helping me understand it better. ELT not only helped me understand the concept of evolution, but it also helped me recognize the science of the natural world and its impact of humanity. Another course that I took as a requirement for ELT was African Civilization (AASP 200). AASP 200 is a about African civilization from 4500 B.C. to present with an analysis of traditional social systems and the impact of European colonization. This course has taught me a lot, not only my country, Ethiopia, but every country in Africa. I learned about many of countries past history and how they got to where they are now. This was my favorite course during my first semester; it influenced me so much that I am studying aboard to South Africa Next Summer for four weeks. Field trips were another way Holtz and Merck helped the students understand about the lecture material. The field trips to West Virginia and the Marian Koshland Museum were my favorite field trips because it made the lecture material clear that we went over in class. I did not understand the concepts of different types of rocks and fossils just from reading a packet in class, but the trip to West Virginia for fossil hunting and geology really opened my eyes. This field trip gave me the firsthand contact with natural geological and biological settings, as a result understood the different types of fossils and rocks that could be found. The Marian Koshland Museum trip was also eye opening because I knew global warming was a problem but I did not know how bad of a problem it was until I went to this museum. There was this once station in the museum that was a globe, one side had more intense light shining on it than the other, and when I put my hands on but at the same time I realized the difference immediately. The side that represented global warming was extremely hotter than the side that did not have global warming, this put a new perspective in my head that if the earth keeps going in this direction, then we will not survive. These field trips were very helpful because it different types of opportunities that are not available to students in the typical university settings. In all, ELT scholars has greatly helped me for the rest of my undergraduate career, it has opened my eyes to science that relates to my everyday activities. Also because ELT encouraged me to get an internship in the science field, I decided to look for a job at NIH and I succeed. Now I have an excellent internship at NIH, and this will help for future research jobs I want. And of coarse, it will give me something to put on my resume, showing that I have valuable lab experience. If I had to pick one thing that ELT has helped the most in, it would be the people I meet while in this program. My best friends now are from ELT. In fact, I am living in an apartment right now with a fellow ETL student. The living learning program is very helpful in that you live with students that you have the same classes and majors with. I could have never gain this experience if I was not in ELT, which shows why ELT was a life changing experience for me.