My experience in the Science and Global Change program and the university in general. One of my failures in using critical thinking skills was when I was doing a problem in a Mechanics class. When I was doing the problem, I failed to actually identify the problem in the first place. Because of this, I practically winged the entire assignment and instead of taking a couple of minutes to do this one question, it took much longer than that. I failed the first part of the scientific method of all methods, and I ended needing to guess the problem continuously because I could not identify where the forces were acting. The biggest news related item that has struck my attention within the last three semesters is likely to be the hurricane that struck Southern California, Hurricane Hilary. It is such an important thing to understand that because of California’s cold ocean current, Hurricanes, especially of that level should be practically impossible to hit the state, let alone a significant part of it. Warmer ocean temperatures around the Pacific Ocean have meant that the hurricane was able to penetrate through the cold current that while still weakening the storm, it did not change the fact that catastrophic rainfall hit that area, a place that for most months of August doesn’t even see a drop of precipitation. Landfalls and mudslide wreaked havoc in the region and that doesn’t even account for the flooding that came with multiple inches of rain while the soil was dry enough to have catastrophic flooding with only a fraction of an inch. One of my classes in an economics gen ed which somewhat focused on Gen Eds has helped reinforce the idea that this is caused by climate change when slides and slides of data have been presented to show the class that not only are these storms happening more frequently, but places that you would never expect to have a specific kind of natural disaster could now or in the near future be possible. These places are too unprepared for something that has never been experienced before and the program has shown that while solutions are being proposed and that we cannot give up hope, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a problem that is not being solved fast enough. The hurricane’s disaster levels were further proven to be a result of climate change when it was shown in the class in addition to the hurricane itself, the most important data to look at was when water temperatures around the world was reaching record high levels. Florida in particular saw temperatures upwards of 39 degrees Celsius or about 102 degrees Fahrenheit. While not necessarily relating to the west coast itself, it is the most extreme example of how far we have come to destroy the environment around us and that temperature disparities also effected the west coast. And the worst part is that while there was an El niño going on, this is only the beginning for what is potentially in store for us.
One of the things that SGC has in helping me learn was introducing me to html programming. HTML has helps me finds ways to not only create websites that help me to learn material and memorize them like having flashcards with explanations that are not too dissimilar to Quizlet or using a personal website to appeal to internships and jobs that seek to know more about me. And this is only one of many uses of things that HTML can do for people in the living and learning program. Otherwise, my opinion is that I did not necessarily learn that much from SGC. This can be explained by the fact that I already know or knew a lot about information that pertains to the course and that I often keep up with the news to date. This means that a lot of what SGC practicums offer is just information repeated to me on any given day.
My contributions to SGC are in the active will to understand what goes on when I am in class and contribute to the conversation when needed in the practicum. There are many cases where most people do not understand an event or concept that is being taught of given in SGC, so I inform them about what is being presented. I think that SGC brought me in contact with many people that had similar mainstream beliefs to me, but the fact is that there are many beliefs that I have that are extremely unique to myself. I do not think that I have met any person that is as vocal about trains, good urban design, etc. In addition to that, I feel like I am the only person in SGC that actually thinks that UMD should have a meaningful change in land use. Mixed use zoning could bring a lot of commerce to UMD that would make a 15 minute+ walk from the Cambridge Community into a fraction of that time. I don’t think that many if any person shares such a belief when I have only met a handful of people around campus in general that share even remotely similar beliefs. SGC has many experiences and discussions that are especially important for the implication of our future.
Climate change is the most important and the most talked about example of the implication that our planet will face in the near and far future. It is a fact that with current projections, the world will be significantly worse off than today based on climate alone and that based on current projections, the amount of contributions that the average person is contributing to battle climate change is completely offset by the sheer amounts of emissions that are being emitted by large corporations and its supporters including but not limited to, oil, gas, coal, automotive, and other major industries that would rather see the world rot as long as they make more money in the short-term. My interactions with other people in the program was overall very good. I had a good experience commuting with them as a lot of them had unexpected similar views but also share these beliefs while being a different major. Even though that likely didn't mean much in that context, I still found it pretty cool that the people in the program were very socialable and kind. One encounter I had that challenging beliefs and opinions was that over carbon footprint. Many of the people I know are very fixated on carbon footprint but I was a little different on the issue. My beliefs were that carbon footprint did not matter as much because we are not the main pollutors in society while many others focused on the fact that our choices still have an impact so we should do something about it. I didn't necessarily disagree with that notion but having other perspectives say that did make me think if they knew about how much some of the top corporations actually emitted and if so what they would do differently. Maybe they would've spend more time advocating for a decrease in corporate emissions over their own personal ones but I don't always know what goes on in people's brains. This class has shown overall that if nothing is done, the future will be bleak, which makes it all the more important that something gets done as a group and not simply as an individual.