Reflecting on my experiences thus far in the SGC program has been a humbling and worthwhile task these past couple weeks. Students, myself included, have seen drastic changes to our current environment, now almost completing a full two semesters entirely online. As I looked back at my previous assignments and classes that fulfilled the citation requirements, there is a lot to digest on what I have done in SGC and my college experience thus far.
To start, I vividly remember failing to apply critical thinking skills in one of my classes outside of our scholar colloquium. It was in my first semester in the fall of 2019 in my communications class. Back then, I was tasked with presenting a persuasive speech about a topic of my choice. I chose to talk about the inherently unfair practice of transgender females competing against biological females in contact sports as well as Olympic weightlifting. I remember finishing up the outline of my speech but struggled to come up with a strong, convincing introduction that would guide my listeners in the direction of what I was about to talk about. Ultimately, I thought it was best to start with a sentence that went like this: "Imagine this: You are put into a competition to see who is the fastest and the strongest in a series of competition. However, there’s a catch: you would be competing against third graders. Obviously, the results inevitably have you being the winner regardless of your athleticism." Following the end of my speech, our class was also required to write peer reviews that would be handed out to each presenter at the end of class. When I read over what other classmates had to say about my speech, I was greeted with a comment that read "your introduction was a logical fallacy." At the time, I had no idea what that meant but quickly became curious to the definition of the word as it obviously sounded intelligent and could be helpful for the future. Fast forward to the second semester of SGC, we learned about critical thinking and logical fallacies in great details. This is when I had the realization back to my communications class and found out the importance of making statements that are factual based on legitimate information.
Separate from the topic of logical fallacies and critical thinking skills, one thing SGC has done to enhance my attitude and approach to my major was learning about the effects of anthropogenic climate change; but more specifically how human behaviors have contributed massively to the rise in global temperatures. As a business major studying finance and information systems, almost everything I've learned thus far does not take the environment into account. Of course, some classes have mentioned sustainability practices and the rise of consumer preference towards companies that exercise corporate responsibility. However, not one class thus far has provided the context about the importance of this global issue. They are often always tunnel vision about the company financial performance and only care about things such as higher profit margins when X company does this or ways to generate multiple revenue streams to avoid financial crises. I think learning how drastic and urgent the problem of climate change through SGC has opened my eyes into how I approach current events in business. Rather than simply questioning how a company is able to achieve these massive steps in revenue and profit, I tend to question the ethical process in which it was done. And this goes beyond current events. Even if there is a made-up practice problem in my finance class, I still question whether a fictional company was able to achieve market dominance through ethical, sustainable practices. To finish off, I've made a conscious effort to ask companies I've interviewed with for extern/internship opportunities about their company sustainability practices. I believe SGC has engrained a stronger self-value towards the environment that I am forever grateful for.
Part of fulfilling my SGC requirements include taking classes that are separate from the general colloquium. One of the classes I took freshman year was AREC241 which was a class focused on the economic impact of the environment. I personally found this class very interesting and was very engaged in the class discussions throughout the semester. One thing that I can remember that translates to what we've learned in SGC was the use of renewable energy sources. It was our final project that tasked me and a group to conduct intensive research about a single energy source and then debate whether or not the energy source is feasible against another group. In my project, my group was assigned nuclear energy which pertains to the most recent in-class simulation we did over the past few weeks. Like SGC, we looked above the mere functionality of the energy source but rather its economic implications, how it effects other nations, and its environmental impact. I think this specific class worked in congruence with the SGC class very well. The other class I took that satisfied the SGC supporting course was general chemistry. Unfortunately, I do not remember very much about the class as I took it in high school. However, learning about the different molecular structures and essentially the basis for every single thing in the universe most definitely translated to my learning in SGC thus far--whether I know it or not now. Especially when we had our unit regarding rocks and how we can analyze them to discover historical events that occurred on Earth, knowing the chemical construct of these rocks was something I could actively apply even though we did not explicitly learn about it in SGC.
On my short time on campus, I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to live in the living-learning community. Instead of being in the Cambridge community, I was down south on North Hill living in Prince Frederick. I will say, however, that I was still able to form a valuable relationship with one individual in SGC. This person actually went to my high school but, at that time, we were not friends. However, as fate eventually caught up, we became pretty close to each other and sat next to each other in class. He happens to be a computer science major so when the assignments in the first semester came up regarding the use of HTML, I was lost at first being a business major with no previous computer programming knowledge. The ability to connect with him and for him to offer pieces of advice were extremely beneficial and allowed me to learn the content. With the guidance of his tips, I was able to complete the HTML projects accurately and correctly.
Regarding my active participation within the entire SGC community, I am guilty of acknowledging my lack of contributing to the program far and beyond the minimum standard. I did participate in the in-person field trips, contributed to group discussions in colloquiums, and completed all of the work. However, being someone who did not live in the SGC community and pursuing a degree that is completely unrelated to STEM, I found it difficult to make my own personal contributions. With more friends in the BSE community, it was easier to form relationships as we were often taking the same courses and are around each other a lot more frequently down south at the Smith School. That is not to say that I am not regretful of my decisions. If I could go back in time, I would most definitely be a more active member in the SGC program. I feel like there were a lot of things that I did not take advantage of that SGC had to offer.
In terms of how SGC challenged my previous beliefs, it is in line with what I stated earlier. Ever since I was young, I always had a sixth sense about the value of money. I consider myself a frugal person who emphasizes saving or spending. However, I also have always had an entrepreneurial mindset that has dreams of creating a successful business. All I cared about was money and did not necessarily care for the ways that was achieved as long as it was legally acceptable. You could say that I had the mindset of a typical big business owner who make huge profit margins without any regard to the environment and how they continually pollute/contribute to global climate change without flinching. However, like I stated before, I now know the implications industrial practices have on the environment because of the SGC colloquiums. Those dreams of creating a company when I get older have not disappeared; rather, they have transformed into a deeper understanding of how I can create both a successful company and mitigate the effects of climate change simultaneously.
SGC has taught me a lot of things I can translate into my professional career. As I also mentioned earlier, I am always conscious about the companies I apply for and how they have contributed to the fight against climate change because of SGC. Personally, I do not think I could ever work for a company that is so ignorant or uninformed about the issue and would do everything in my power to avoid those companies. I hope to translate my knowledge I've learned into this class into my future aspirations. Wherever I end up in the near future, I will make sure to emphasize sustainable business practices, whether that would be utilizing renewable energy sources or practicing environmentally friendly behaviors in the workplace such as recycling or energy saving tactics. Regardless, I am extremely fortunate enough to be a part of the SGC community. I cannot thank Dr. Holtz and Dr. Merck enough for their tireless effort in ensuring me, as well as my classmates, a worthwhile experience in learning about our Earth and its future implications whether we were online or in-person.