Throughout my time in Science and Global Change, I believe that the experiences that I've had have served as a strong element both as a program that helped with understanding my own major better and as an interdisciplinary tool for connecting material across courses. One example of SGC's cross disciplinary impact came up for me while I was taking a course on oral communication. As one element of the class, we picked an issue in the news that we felt was important to address, and prepared a series of presentations on it. Coming off of my experiences with SGC, where we were describing not only the impacts of climate change but their uneven influences across marginalized groups, I quickly latched on to the topic of climate change's current and projected impacts in the Horn of Africa, which has been continually facing some of the most severe effects of drought and flooding. My experiences with the Science and Global Change program, which provided me with a strong baseline understanding of climate issues running parallel with disparities in wealth and justice, gave me a lens through which to understand the more academic articles that I worked with.
Another interdisciplinary connection that I found through the Scholars program was between AGNR301 (Sustainability), one of my supporting classes, and CHEM135 (General Chemistry for Engineers), a course that I've helped teach for the past couple semesters. In CHEM135, we cover chemistry questions through a real world focus, including one unit describing the process of wastewater treatment. It's my favorite unit — I have a soft spot for wastewater plants — but one of the ideas that we cover is that not everything gets removed. Bacteria, oils, and natural products are all removed, but taking care of phosphates and similar molecules can require harder to maintain systems and reactions. One area we don't touch, though, is what those chemicals do. AGNR301 picks up right at the point that nitrates and phosphates leave the plant, describing the impact that these nutrients can have on the local aquatic life and ecosystems. I thought that the combination of the two courses were an interesting meeting between a class primarily focused on policy and one focused on science, facilitated by the requirements that SGC set forth.
The courses that I took for Scholars also helped me connect to and better plan for my major. I've always been interested in environmental issues, but Science and Global Change (the third semester in particular) helped me to get a stronger grasp on what areas there are for future growth in sustainability issues among electrical engineering domains. Honestly, out of all of the foci that Maryland's Electrical Engineering program puts forth, the information and courses to support Power Systems — the specialty that I plan on entering — are fairly limited. For me, Scholars was helpful in discovering the in-major possibilities for continuing to work with sustainability, focusing on renewable energy and smart electricity distribution systems. Similarly, my time taking Engineering Ethics — a supporting course for Scholars — was a useful way to connect with my major and the concepts in it in a different way. Compared to the other engineering courses that I took, ENEE200 had a focus on the dangers of improper behavior by engineers, and the importance of care for the profession and for the users. I strongly believe that ethics courses, regardless of their focus, are very important for getting a complete education. Without having at least some experience discussing ethics and making decisions based on a variety of frameworks, I think that you lose out on a lot of value in your life and in the decisions you make personally and professionally. The one area that I feel I did miss out on was in my interactions with other SGC scholars. I never actually lived in the living-learning community, so my involvement with Scholars was purely as a learning community. That said, I did my best to contribute to the Scholars program and to SGC as much as possible. Science and Global Change had a large number of discussions, which I was always active in, but beyond the classroom I also helped out as a Scholars Ambassador in the spring of 2025 and as a SGC Peer Mentor this fall. As a Scholars Ambassador, my responsibility was to help explain to prospective students my experiences with the program, give them brief tours of the area, and answer any questions they had. As a Peer Mentor, I do my best to connect a group of SGC students to the campus, through participation in Service Day, regular check-ins and meetings, and by hosting several events for them to come to each semester.
My experiences in Scholars, particularly in AGNR301 as a supporting course, have introduced me to some really interesting people that impacted the way that I think about things myself. Because both colloquiums for SGC and lectures for Sustainability have higher levels of discussion and debate, they've provided me with an interesting chance to hear from people who approach the same issues from different directions. For example, we recently had an interesting discussion on how much the world would have to change to be fully sustainable. Within this debate, it was really interesting to hear that, although there were some issues that were universally agreed upon, like the significant decrease in use of fossil fuels, a lot of the specifics as to social changes and economic changes that would need to happen to make it a reality were different from person to person. Even if my personal opinions have not changed a ton over the course of my first three semesters, conversations like these have definitely both refined and made me reflect on my own beliefs.
Honestly, I'm not sure yet how Scholars will inform my future. If possible, I definitely do want to go into a more environmentally-oriented career. The focus on Drawdown this semester, as well as discussions surrounding the importance of change previously, have been useful for understanding what does need to happen, and I think it would be worth pursuing some of the changes that need to be made myself. In the more immediate future, Scholars gave me a very strong appreciation for more discussion-based and humanities adjacent courses. Compared to my in-major classes, which are all technically focused, the courses that I've taken for Scholars have been an important change of pace for me so far. I'm starting the STEP (Science, Technology, Ethics, and Policy) track next semester because of the impact that the supporting courses in SGC have had on me, and hopefully those will provide me with another opportunity to make interdisciplinary connections and stay connected to the more human side of education. No matter what, I'm very happy with how my time in Scholars has gone, even if I'm sad that it has gone. I look forward to continuing to expand my education as much as I can and seeing my mentees do the same.