Science and Global Change is a program aimed at teaching students about the effective use of the hypothetico-deductive method and the real history of global change. This includes learning about logical fallacies, prehistoric climate change, the anthropocene, and even possible responses to the current climate crisis. All in all, I have learned a lot in this course and feel simultaneously scared and hopeful for our future as humans. The course has given me tools that I can apply to other classes and have fostered relationships that I otherwise may not have had. I am happy to have been a part of the program and hope that it continues to inform my thinking in the future, seeing as it has already shaped my thinking in settings outside of the classroom.
Firstly, as a STEM major, I have used the hypothetico-deductive method in almost every single class I’ve taken at school. In my mechanics class I had to prototype and build a truss. This meant theorizing what kinds of trusses would be best depending on our material and after CAD analyses of different designs, we had to keep changing and iterating our designs. Also, in a class like organic chemistry, there is a lot of theorizing and analyzing results. I might have to use an IR spectrum to hypothesize the kinds of molecules I’m looking at. Then, I might have to corroborate that with an NMR analysis which can either confirm or deny my original hypothesis. Overall, Science and Global Change has helped me realize interoceptively what I’m doing when making hypotheses. It also really helped teach me that using the hypothetico-deductive method is at the foundation of all my courses and that making mistakes is a part of the process of learning.
A good example of a logical fallacy I found outside SGC is making hasty generalizations when it comes to classes and such. For example, maybe the first day of classes is really hard for a student. They immediately assume that it’s just going to be a terrible semester. But having one bad day in class or having one really bad exam in class doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. It’s such a limited sample and too much of a hasty generalization. This can also lead people like me to think that college wasn’t meant for me and that I should drop out, but that would be the slippery slope fallacy. So in that sense, SGC has taught me to stay resilient and not be too quick to judge situations.
This semester I have been taking the sustainability course here at Maryland that is a supporting course for our program. This course has really helped me think about my own impact on the world. We went deeper into the idea of the ecological footprint and how us individuals can impact world health. The course has taught me what I can do to try and do my part in saving the planet, whether it's lobbying for environmental justice or cutting down on food waste and carbon heavy food products. Similarly, I took an intro to archaeology course, another supporting course for SGC. This course helped me learn more about how our world has changed over time. I learned a lot more about paleoclimate proxies like ice cores and tree rings. We talked a bit about them in SGC, but archaeology gave me more context on how it relates to human history and how we can see what life for humans ages ago was like. We also learned about how a lot of the archaeological record is made up of garbage. We’ve learned about our past from the waste of humans before us. Both of these points have made me think about how the pollution that we are creating can very well be a huge part of the archaeological record in the not too distant future. Overall, both courses were fun and made for a more well rounded learning experience in the class.
Another thing I’m very thankful for from my experience in SGC is the relationships I’ve built. My best friend here at school is actually someone from SGC. We met at the SGC orientation and have been friends ever since. Having made friends before even coming to school was very helpful for me. I didn’t have to worry about not knowing anyone when I came into a new environment and I knew there was someone else there that I could always talk to. It’s especially great because we actually enjoy the content we learn during class and talking about it outside of the classroom is not only fun and interesting, but aids in our understanding of the class better. We also have many of the same classes, so SGC helped find me a great study buddy. Not even just that, but I know a lot of the people in my class pretty well and it makes this really big campus feel a little more personal.
I am also an active contributor to the SGC community in that I am actually a peer mentor. Being a peer mentor, I have been able to share my passion for the course with the next generation of students. I hope that in my mentorship that I got them excited for the class and I hope that I was able to make that transition into college that much better. I know I enjoyed having a mentor that could give me advice on college things and I hope that my mentees can say the same. I’ve talked with each of them individually, hosted events with them, and participated in service with them. All things that brought us closer together and helped foster that sense of community within our program. At the end of the day, I hope that my contributions as a mentor were able to keep new students interested in the course and make them feel just as inspired and welcomed as I did when I was a freshman.
I think one big idea of mine that was really challenged was I thought we can’t really do anything about climate change as individuals and that it was really up to governments to change. However, this class plus my sustainability class have really given me a bigger picture of the climate crisis. While yes governments and large corporations have a lot of control over the impacts on our environment, that doesn’t mean we can just sit back and do nothing. Oftentimes our small actions like recycling or cutting down on eating meat can really help sustain our environment, especially when we work together. Complacency is simply the enemy of ensuring a future for ourselves and when we have an artificial hopelessness created about trying to save the environment, it only makes things worse. These classes have taught me the importance of being an active contributor to efforts that sustain our future and that it is silly to just sit back and watch the world burn because we think we can’t do anything about it.
Finally, I think that scholars will help me exponentially in my future. Not only have I gained a better understanding of what science is, but I have learned how to interpret it and how to identify baloney when it pops up. Along with that, I hope that scholars will help me to understand how my future projects impact the environment. I envision a future career where designing sustainable biomedical devices is at the heart of my efforts. This class has really taught me the importance of analyzing our impacts on the world and how we might be able to mitigate them. I want to be able to create sustainable solutions to health problems.
Overall, I am very thankful for the time that I’ve spent with scholars. I think it has allowed me to learn more about things that aren’t necessarily within my major. It’s given me a better view of the world and how I can contribute to it as a responsible human being. The course content is often interesting and valuable and I am grateful to have participated in it. I hope that my future career allows me to apply the knowledge on science and global change that I have learned. I’ve met some amazing people in the program and I look forward to seeing how it will help me in my future.