Niyant's Three Semester Review

Throughout my time in the College Park Scholars Science and Global Change program, I have felt a sense of community greater than any other experience I have had at university. SGC brought a group of likeminded people together who could interact with each other on a weekly basis. As a Biology student, I entered the program feeling out of my comfort zone, as many of the students were future engineers and computer scientists. However, that did not stop me from building bonds with many of them regardless of our differences. In our first semester, we learned about the art of science and research. I had prior experience and knowledge of this, due to my past research experience. However, I was taught more about how research can be manipulated and how the definition of research has been stretched in certain scenarios. In class, we learned about Pseudoscience. Pseudosciences are practices that are believed to be sciences but due to their lack of research and usage of the scientific method, they are not sciences. When I was a child, I always believed that acupuncture was a science, as so many people trusted others to stick needles in them that there must be research and science involved. However, in the pseudoscience lecture, acupuncture was proven to be a pseudoscience as it lacked the research and was purely based on theory. I was unaware that acupuncture stems from the belief of unmeasurable energies. This enhanced my understanding of the sciences around me and how I was viewing certain practices as sciences when they were not. As a Biology student, understanding what is science and what is not will help me better understand what I should use as references in my future research. My learning would not be possible without my SGC classmates. Many of our exercises in class stemmed from the information I learned from them as we were able to conquer different learning tasks and come together to teach each other what we learned. When we discussed Decarbonization methods, I was able to teach my classmates about methane digestion while I was taught about methods such as wind energy. Another instance was when we were able to teach each other about transportation and infrastructure methods. It would have been very time consuming reading through every method, so having it summarized and taking the main points from classmates made the assignment and understanding the methods a lot simpler. Although my fellow classmates have helped me understand the purpose of SGC, I believe that I have not yet contributed to SGC in the way that Id like. Due to scheduling conflicts, I believe that I have dedicated less time than I should have towards SGC. However, I have learned from every lecture and reached out to some of the guest speakers. Kathrine Udell was one of the guest speakers whose research stood out to me. I contacted her after the colloquium and I was able to learn more about her research into icequakes in Antartica. For the next 2 months, I was assisting her research by geomapping using the QGIS software. However, due to scheduling conflicts I was unable to continue the research. This research taught me how valuable earth sciences were and how I was seeing science from the life science perspective. Through SGC, I was able to learn more about the meaning of science and how vast the field of science is rather than just the life sciences. As stated, prior to SGC, when someone asked me about sciences, I would instantly assume life sciences such as biology and chemistry. However, after being in SGC for 3 semesters, I have changed my answer. Sciences such as geology, paleontology, and geology are sciences that I think of along with the general life sciences. SGC has opened my eyes to earth and atmospheric sciences. Another popular belief that SGC disproved for me was the versatility of a science degree. I have met so many interesting guest speakers with differing backgrounds that studied the same type of science when at UMD. One of the guest speakers spoke about how with his Biology degree, he decided to work for the Chesapeake bay foundation and was able to make a difference. He was able to find this passion through his initial SGC interactions while attending University of Maryland. As someone who was always told that a Biology degree requires graduate programs, it was a change of pace to see someone with the same field of study as me who had a completely different career path. Scholars has improved my view on the world and the climate issues that are present in todays society. I was able to learn a lot and I will continue to learn throughout my career in Scholars from CPSS 340 and even Dr. Mercks Biology of Extinct Organisms course. I have been introduced to so many different people from different backgrounds who have similar and differing beliefs and goals. However, we all have a passion towards learning and growing as individuals. I could not be more proud of how I have progressed in the past 3 semesters and I will continue to grow and implement what I have learned throughout these 3 semesters into my future as a Dentist and more importantly, as a student of science. The one aspect that I will remember and teach to others will be a proper understanding of science and to understand how science powers the world. Everything stems from science of the past and present. If we continue to build on that foundation that has been left for us, we can cure the world, mitigating the impact of climate change, working to change the world for the better. SGC has changed my selfish outlook on society and allowed me to focus on the world that the next generation will live in. Failing to work on fixing the problem of climate change will result in kids in later generations failing to see the beautiful environment in the same light.

Last modified: 12 December 2023