Following Discussed:
I hate the news; at least that's how I usually perceive news-related items. Whenever encountering news, it always seems like it was trying to grab my attention by any means necessary. If it made me feel good, sad, or angry, it didn't matter because it grabbed my attention and got my engagement. That usually made me feel really used, and I overall didn't like how the news made me feel. So I actively avoided it since it didn't really seem to inform me of anything, and it just made me feel awful. That was until a class I took in my freshman year, and in this class, I was assigned to watch a documentary. It was a documentary about Turkey Creek in Mississippi. Turkey Creek is a predominantly African American community founded by freed slaves after the Civil War. It was a very historic and important community. Although the community was threatened by developers buying out the land all around them, and the environmental issues from climate change were damaging the lifestyle they built around the creek. To me, this documentary got me interested in the news again because it reminded me that not all news is just to get my engagement. Things are happening that simply need attention, and by ignoring all news, I would have never been able to learn about certain things happening. So this is what got me back into at least tuning into news-related items, and for my tuning in. I was actually able to use some of what I learned in the SGC colloquium to understand some of the intentions behind these news articles. It was almost like playing a game of what logical fallacies are being used right now. So let that really get me used to being more invested and in touch with the news, which allowed me to learn about something that's happening in our community right now
Very close by in PG County, my home county, which is primarily Black and Hispanic, they're going to be building a data center. Which is intended to power AI, and I've been keeping up with this story and the updates that have been happening. Since this is my home, I want to know the consequences and what I can do to protect my household. I think the SGC program really did get me to be more open to the news and even more willing to try to combat it. With SGC, I know that there is hope and there are things that I can still do, and that's what I will be doing. In addition to that, being in your class really introduced me to the capacities of geology and the environment. Until I took your class, I thought geology would just be rocks in history, which are two things I don't really have too much interest in. Although when I learned it's more about Earth and different planets in general, it generally got me more interested and made me realize that that's what I wanted to do. Especially the lecture on geotech; learning about that and geology's place in it really pushed me to change my major to geology. So it really gave me a new understanding of a new major and also made me realize that what I was doing wasn't what I wanted to do. So I'm really glad I learned this early on rather than later on in my life.
Although the main classes weren't the only things that had a huge impact on me as an SGC student. In addition to the main classes, I also learned a lot from the supporting courses. I would say during my first year, those were the most impactful courses to me. The Urban Planning and Environmental Injustice course I took was really interesting and really sparked my interest in environmental change and activism. It reminded me just how much change still needs to happen. With Urban Development, I was able to be introduced to sustainability concepts, and I found them really interesting. They also talked about how they can be used to make neighborhoods sustainable, especially those that are heavily affected by pollution. I found myself really interested in the signs behind all of this, and it honestly got me to engage more with UMD. Through their abundant organizations that were to make this campus more sustainable. That's what fully convinced me that I really loved the signs behind the Earth and how to protect it more. Environmental Injustice was another course I took as a supporting course that also reminded me of something I loved, which was environmental activism. This was the final straw that made me really want to push for an environmentally involved major. It also reminded me again that giving up or ignoring a problem doesn't just freeze that problem. Turning a blind eye to issues will only make them worse and harder to dismantle. There is always hope for change, and a few negative things may be a setback, but it's not the end of fighting back, and that's what that class really reminded me of, so it did have a really big impact on how I entered my second year of college.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be as interactive with my fellow SGC Scholars since I wasn't able to live in Centerville Hall because of a conflicting program I was in. I didn't hear a lot about the living learning community in Centerville since I had friends who were Scholars but not specifically SGC, talk about their experiences in Centerville. From what I hear, it's very connected and overall gives you access to a lot of your other peers and mentors. So it's a lot easier to form bonds and become deeper with your SGC cohort. This allowed for more investment and engagement during our lectures since it felt like you had someone else who was holding you accountable. Although, since I didn't live in Centerville, it was really difficult for me to form a deeper bond with my fellow Scholars with an SGC. I was able to attend some of the events, and that did allow me to meet and introduce myself to my peers alongside other excursions we did. Those were really the only times I felt like I deepened the bond with my cohort. So overall, the events in excursions did help with improving my learning and interacting with others in the program. Although I believe the real connections come from being in the same dorm and being able to interact with others on a regular basis.
For the active contribution of students, I believe I participated overall in academic situations such as the field trips and colloquium discussions. Although I feel like the field trips give a better opportunity to fully contribute since there's more active independence during the excursions or trips. For example, the first thing we did was Service Day. I thought that we contributed the most then. Since it was a lot more active and independent, the overall contributions were more tangible. That seems like the time I probably contributed the most since it was activity-based. Although with discussions, I feel like I contribute from time to time, it's difficult, especially with a large group. These discussions, though, were the environment where a lot of my beliefs were challenged. Since we are grouped up, I had to hear a lot of people and what they think about certain things. Since I was in such a big group, I was forced to listen, which was really nice because I did get to hear other people's opinions very clearly and gain an understanding that I didn't have before. For me, I realized this when the class was discussing the different climate rescue techniques that we can use, and the topic of seaweed came up. I don't think that a switch to a vegan diet for all of society is a feasible sustainability tactic. So when seaweed was brought up to be pushed as a main dish into diets, I was very much against it. I just didn't believe that seaweed could be a replacement for any type of meat or something similar. Since I have grown up eating seaweed as a filler snack, it doesn't have a lot of calories, so you can eat a lot of it. So I felt like having that as a replacement for something hefty like meat just isn't possible. In the end, though, I was introduced to many recipes and methods to make seaweed a lot more filling and less of a snack by a member of that discussion group.
Lastly, Science and Global Change has had such an impact on me that I believe that I will be using things I've learned from Scholars all throughout my life. SGC made me realize that there's still hope and people working to better the climate and our planet, despite the negativity that surrounds it. This community really pushed me to be hopeful and positive about the future, especially my own future. I genuinely want to help people and our planet to be better, and SGC reminded me that that's a possible goal. That is something I can do, and I will do, and that will forever remain with me.