Late June of 2006. UMD Freshman Orientation. My roommate for the night was a fellow ELT-er, Jared McGrath. Shortly after check-in, I made my way to a classroom in the math building to meet other ELT members and our program advisors. I had no idea what to expect - nor did I have any idea what I would be getting myself into. The CPS website didn't leave me with that many ideas as to what exactly ELT was, and ELT student web pages left me with the impression that there were a lot of nerdy kids in my group. So I thought, "Great, I picked the group with a lot of nerds." I entered the classroom with this predisposed opinion and that opinion changed as soon as I took a seat and listened to Merck and Holtz for the first time. Little did I know that these two men were the most eccentric college professors I would ever have.
Earth, Life, and Time is a program that more or less teaches Natural History - but with a perspective of time. ELT allows students to gain a scientific understanding of the world around us while at the same time taking into account the passage of time and how it has affected and will affect the world in which we live. Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee read in semester two of ELT was by far my favorite reading of three semesters of colloquium. Unlike most of the scientific readings I have had to do in the past, Diamond's writing style was able to keep me entertained. No wonder he has won the Pulitzer Prize. The Third Chimpanzee easily drove home the point that humans do not control the world; the world controls humans (and for that matter every other species that calls Earth home). Just because the Earth is dominated by humans doesn't mean that we control the Earth; yes humans can affect the Earth (climate change anybody?) but there is no way that we could possibly control it.
Semester II's Family Origin project was by far my favorite project of all three semesters. I never realized that every person in the entire class could possibly be related to the same original ethnicity. Asking my grandmother and my father about their parents and their birth locations and life stories was one of the most interesting conversations I have ever had with my father. Interestingly enough I also found out that it is possible that I may have African ancestry in my past, which was interesting because of the ARTH175 (Art of Africa) class that my roommate Matt and my friend Kelsey (fellow ELT-er) persuaded me to take it second semester freshman year. In addition to being a Course B requirement for ELT, I can honestly say it is one class that I was not expecting to be as interesting as it was. Although my professor wasn't my favorite, the way she presented the information about art forms and African art styles and symbols in a multimedia format made me actually want to attend lecture. It paid off grade-wise, but more importantly when I went to the American Museum of Naturl History during the Scholars in New York, Kelsey and I visited the Metropolitan Musuem of Art just to see the African Art exhibit. It was very interesting to see all the art forms I had only seen pictures of on a projector in real life. Another field trip I enjoyed was the trip to the National Zoo at the end of first semester. Although the pandas weren't that interesting I still enjoyed the "learning" that could occur on a visit to the zoo. Due to field trip report requirements I acutally learned a lot about conservation efforts in several countries where zoo animals natural habitats are located. Lots of effort have been taken to prevent the destruction of the scarce areas for animals such as pandas and several amphibian species to live.
ELT colloquium and UNIV100 both helped me learn together in small groups. In high school I hated group work becuase it seemed I was always the one that ended up doing all of the work. However being in small groups with the same people over time has been a rather pleasant experience. Interacting with people that have the same majors and aspirations in live has also been nice. A lot of my friends in ELT are either engineers or pre-med students. I used to wnat to do pre-med but now I would ike to apply to the engineering school to be a chemical engineer. Knowing people from ELT has also paid off with studying for other classes we share. CHEM237 in semester two is a perfect example of this. The course was a requirement for my major and for ELT. Mokshya Sharma was also in the small class of roughly 25, so studying for this exam always seemed to occur in a private study room on the bottom of Centreville Hall. I know the reason why I was able to pull my grade up in that class was because of the group studying I did before the final examination.
Scholars will help my undergraduate and post-grad career. Even if I do decide to stay pre-med and follow it to wherever it takes me, I will thank ELT for its very diverse program members. I can thank ELT for making me want to take a geology class in the upcoming semester. I never really had a knack for "rocks" back in elementary school (the only time my teachers ever really talked about it to be honest), but now I have an interest in the Earth and have actually been watching a lot of things on the Discovery Channel lately about plate tectonics and volcanos. If only studying volcanos for a living were with in my grasp I totally would venture into that field. But lastly, my three semesters in ELT wouldn't have been the same without the once a week colloquium, where I know Merck and Holtz would get anyone to have a smile on their face or laugh from the jokes (Holtz) or funny drawings (Merck). I'm going to miss the colloquium environment next semester, so I made sure to register for Merck's GEOL100 section.