As a whole, I have had an absolutely amazing and enlightening experience with Dr. Holz and Dr. Merck in the SGC scholars program for the past three semesters. While I did have to take CPSG 100, 101, and 200, I feel that these three classes are absolutely an opportunity for me to relax, unwind, and almost forget about the rigorous engineering that included a bevy of calculus, science, and engineering classes. I say almost because scholars were able to integrate a high level approach to all of these concepts to talk about the scientific method and climate change all while not implicating a heavy course load.
The many different subjects we learned in scholars can be relatively attributed to a historical scientific methodology class or a psychology class before modern education rooted it out in teaching students how to think. Of the many concepts we learned, we were instructed on the hypothetico-deductive method, in which modern science is based upon. Another topic we learned about as well was logic and errors in critical thinking for logical fallacies. As stated previously both of these subjects can be found in more historical critical thinking classes. After learning about these subjects, I was able to apply them to my learning and internship experience. For example, this summer I interned at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There, I worked with a team to develop electrical engineering tools and products for researchers. While developing a tool that could help monitor the ultra-low temperature freezers conditions, two of the thermometers were not providing feedback. I didnt know the cause of the issue as it could have resulted from any number of problems, so I decided to use the hypothetico-deductive method to debug the issue. First, I made various falsifiable hypotheses to test different points of failures, like hypothesizing that the principal cause was because of the wiring at different connection points, or something wrong with my code. Then, I very carefully tested each hypothesis, and found that none of my wiring, or handiwork was the issue. After my mentor had a look over it, he came to the conclusion after testing my hypotheses that the issue was actually in the thermometers themselves. Using the hypothetico-deductive method, we were able to scientifically prove that my handiwork was of good quality and had issues in the thermometers.
Another example in which I was able to apply what I learned from SGC was logic and errors in critical thinking for logical fallacies. This also happened at NIH, where I was working on developing a printed circuit board. What happened is that I had made the traces or wiring too small on the board, and didnt know what had gone wrong. It turns out I had made the assumption that the trace width would automatically be adjusted by the program because I thought the professional level software did a lot of things. This can be considered an error of judgment in making assumptions, but it is also my own issue in logical fallacies in an appeal to ignorance. In a rush to get things done, or possibly to do them the easy way to save time and effort. This is obviously not the right way, as these products need to be designed very carefully.
As I mentioned previously, I also took other classes like Physics and Chemistry that were not directly a part of scholars, but were part of the coursework. These classes were definitely foundational, but they changed the way I look at science and society. Physics helps me to look at things and see how they move; to see the underlying factors that cause objects to behave the way they do, as well as to look for ulterior motives. Chemistry helped me to understand the molecular physics of how things work.
Scholars have been an amazing opportunity to help me get a running start in the academic and professional world. I was able to discover so many differences through the networking that scholars brought. When we had guest speakers, it was always easy to email the speakers and to get job/internship opportunities through the speaker and their organization. Additionally, all the TAs had actually had internship experience as well and were very approachable. It was very easy to get knowledge on how to go about getting an internship, and many opportunities were already provided directly by the scholars team.
Contributing to scholars has also been something I have wanted to do. I definitely participated in the service day aspect where all scholars gave back to their community through different forms of service. I worked hard and helped to clean up Kenilworth aquatic gardens as part of my groups project. Additionally, I plan to always be of assistance for advice for Dr. Holz and Dr. Merck as well as for SGC as well as any other scholars. I can also bring networking to the table with my contacts at NIH and all the future internships I have.
Last but not least, I learned a lot about climate change and the scientific method from SGC. This will definitely inspire me to be a much more scientific thinker and a more planet conscious person going forward. I am sure that in my engineering career I will always design my products with the environment in mind. Additionally, I will be a more planet conscious persian and work to stop climate change. Scholars overall has changed the way I think and has given me the toolset to proceed into a future of constant global change.
