Emon Chatterji's Three Semester Review
After being introduced to the more formalized definitions of critical thinking skills we were shown in class, I found use for it in a lot of everyday situations. Namely, once I had the opportunity to see my friends from high school after the spring semester ended, they felt the need to discuss politics. None of them had any extremist views on anything, but I noticed that the majority of the discussion was focused on portraying whoever had just spoken as being stupid without adding anything to the discussion. Naturally, this is pretty standard as far as political discussions are concerned but it really made me see my friends in a new light. We had a far more interesting conversation once we stopped talking about politics.
I was also able to connect the material we discussed in colloquiums to my engineering ethics class. It can be very tempting to make an argument about ethics and appeal solely to emotions but it is very important to avoid doing this. Instead, making the effort to consult scientific literature about the topic and make a logical argument can make your point much more convincing.
I found the consistent focus on scientific research to be very inspirational towards future career choices. Being shown every week the grace there is in pursuing research and dedicating a career towards expanding humanity’s knowledge base definitely had an impact on me. I’ve seriously given a lot of thought into pursuing research in the form of a career and hope that it can become a reality one day. I am currently focused on completing my major of computer engineering and I’m aware that computer engineering is a major that is typically regarded as something that will earn a job in the industry rather than in the research field but I believe that if I choose classes that I find legitimately interesting rather than tailor my coursework by difficulty, I can find a research interest that suits me./p>
I took two classes in my first semester at UMD that count as supporting classes for the Science and Global Change program: CMSC 132 (Object Oriented Programming II) and MATH 241 (Calculus III). These classes were very unique experiences for me. The very first university class I attended was my MATH 241 lecture. The last classroom I had sat in was a high school history class I was attending in March, 2020. MATH 241 was my first time in a lecture hall and I was sitting in the overheated basement of the armory. My math professor’s microphone was just close enough to her mouth to slightly distort her voice but not enough that nobody could understand her. There were five minutes of introductions and discussion about the syllabus, enough to tell us we would be having four midterm exams and about a dozen projects in MATLAB, before beginning the first lecture right then and there. From that point on, however, I found Calculus III to be a very rewarding experience. The class wasn’t so challenging that I couldn’t keep up but it wasn’t an easy class either. This has been my experience in the University of Maryland: if you put the effort in, you can definitely succeed in whatever it is you are trying to achieve.
CMSC 132 was a very challenging class for me. I had to work hard to keep up with the lectures. The projects weren’t particularly easy either. I had done particularly badly on the first of the three midterms. It was then that I decided to study with a friend I made in the discussion session for the class. Since sitting with him, I found my grades on the subsequent midterms improved dramatically. I had never studied with anybody for a class prior to that and I really appreciated it. It wasn’t a good experience just because my grades improved, it was a good experience because of the connection we were able to share the experience of studying together. I’m an only child but I’d imagine that’s what brotherhood is like.
I’ve had very good experiences with other students in our cohort of Science and Global Change. Two students from SGC were in my team for ENES 100 - the class that all students in engineering are required to take where the goal is to work together in teams to design a small car from scratch. ENES 100 is one of the most unique experiences I’ve had and I’m glad that I got to share it with people I see pretty regularly. I’ve also been in classes with other students from SGC and we have always sat next to each other during lectures. Generally, having the SGC connection functions similarly to how I’d imagine fraternity connections work. In terms of the UMD Scholars program as a whole, I met a group of students last year in my dorm, Centreville, who were part of the Science, Discovery and the Universe program. We became such good friends that we rented an apartment together and that’s where I’ll be staying till the end of next semester
Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ve contributed much to the Scholar’s community. As far as field trips are concerned, the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had are attending lectures given by the geology department here at the university. I find that these talks are never filled with terminology or concepts that I wouldn’t understand and I really like being able to talk to the other masters’ students that are attending the talk. It’s always been a positive experience for me to attend these talks because the professors are always happy to have more people attend their talks. I find these lectures very stimulating (and I always appreciate the free food at the receptions). Beyond attending these lectures whenever they are periodically announced, I don’t think I’ve contributed anything to the SGC program. I strongly considered being a peer mentor but it would not fit within my schedule to do that and I would rather not take that responsibility than risk doing a bad job of it.
I think Science and Global change has been a very positive experience for me. The content of the lectures has always been really interesting and I loved attending them. I feel like I have a much better and a much more nuanced understanding of climate change than I could have ever imagined.