My experience in the Science & Global Change Scholar prodram helped in understanding more about the world and myself, to an extent that wouldn’t have been possible without it. Learning to pick apart arguments, create my own, and the fondations of climate change altered my approach to my future and day to day experiences that I’ve had in this past year and a half.
To start, interacting with SGC scholars enhanced my experience as a student at Maryland. I have felt relatively isolated outside of scholars and the classroom environment brought by group work allowed me to be a part of a group and have discussions that I was struggling to have in other classes. At times, the bright fun environment from group work made me smile in ways that social interaction just hadn’t for a long time in college. One specific example of this was the activity this semester where we pretended to be world powers and engaged in international trade to address our climate issues. Everyone got really into it and the genuine reactions and efforts from classmates when it came to establishing these agreements were fun. It was the first time in a long time that I felt excited in a classroom. I also made friends in freshman year from SGC who did wonders for my mental health and academics. We don’t talk often, but I won’t forget how it brought me out of my room and improved my studying (body doubling was a huge help) freshman year. Meeting people from a smaller cohort made approaching them and starting this relationship easier.
The active contribution aspect of the scholars' program also allowed me to contribute to the community. I believe that everyone contributes to College Park Scholars while they’re here, but I was able to contribute as a peer mentor and during service events. Fostering a community similar to my peer mentor allowed me to be a part of Scholars' main tenets, where we create an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone. In addition, service events are an example of my contribution that everyone experiences. By participating in service events we were able to bolster Scholars and the Science and Global Change program’s reputations as helpful and considerate entities. This experience of personally giving to a cause also helped inform my role in climate change mitigation and cementing the idea that not everyone needs to be Greta Thunberg or a top-notch climate change engineer. Any work is good work.
While my beliefs were already aligned with the principles and practices of Science and Global Change, learning about how deeply the world and humans themselves are influenced by humans made me think about history in a way I hadn’t before. I previously thought of it similar to how actors approach acting where events occur because they’ve already happened and they’re experiencing set scenes, but now I realize that history only takes place because of the same reasons anything happens in day-to-day life- human nature and circumstance. The lecture on how humans have shaped their world is what specifically changed this mindset. One example of a topic for this shift was that hard liquor only existed because people were too lazy to dilute alcohol during the age of colonization. Small things shape the world that we live in on so many scales outside of science. This was a big discovery for me to make.
In addition, I got hands-on experience with topics that we were taught during class. An example of this is how I witnessed and employed the hypothetico-deductive method of science myself at a research internship that I was a part of. My principal investigator got excited about creating falsifiable hypotheses and applied that the the project he assigned me. I also got the chance to watch other researchers in my department employ these techniques. The research I was doing would show specific results if our hypothesis was true, but when most of the data I procured aligned with our hypothesis outside of one specimen, I had to employ the hypothetico-deductive method myself to problem-solve these unexpected results. I reran the tests and studied alternative conclusions. The answer I reached was that either the specimen was unique, the parts that I tested were not for what I was looking for, or it was a simple phenomenon of case-by-case variation. I would not have been as effective at this problem-solving if it weren’t for SGC. Supporting courses from SGC also helped with my baseline understanding and implementation of my research. In BSCI160: Evolution and Ecology, I learned the basics of genetics and was able to use that knowledge at my internship as I was working on it, and in BSCI171: Molecular Biology Lab, I learned the actual methodology that I used in my lab and used it for smaller projects in the class. Both of these also used the hypothetico-deductive method to aid in learning sometimes with the direct testing of falsifiable hypothesises in BSCI171 and hypothetical thought projects in BSCI160.
BSCI160, BSCI171, and College Park scholars made me reevaluate what I valued and what made me excited to learn. Some specific instances of these courses enhancing my major were learning about evolution in BSCI160, actively doing molecular labwork in BSCI171, and all the lecture series in Science and Global Change that expounded on the importance of climate change. I had previously understood climate change in separate segments where it was easy to digest separate parts. Learning about climate change more holistically broadened my view of what I could do to contribute. While I wouldn’t be doing everything, anything I do to contribute to climate change mitigation or recording efforts would be worthwhile. Climate change is a multifaceted process and Science and Global Change helped me realize that. I switched my major to Conservation and Biodiversity Biology so that I can contribute in a way that’s meaningful and exciting to me.
I want to help make the world a better place for future generations. I don’t need to be the star of the show, but I would like to help in a way that is exciting to me. Scholars informed my future by directing a professional path for me to follow. While it wasn’t entirely Scholars that led me here, it was an important deciding factor in it. I would think about climate change and its impacts a lot less if it weren’t for scholars. I think that moving forward, scholars will always be the main reason I go into a conservation field and I will never stop talking about that. Interacting with wildlife is an important aspect of my interests, but I want to help inform climate decisions. One particular event that I will mention during these anecdotes and likely on my graduate school applications is our first Service Day. I got to help with conservation efforts firsthand, and while it was less about native conservation, it was still an important turning point for me to realize my interests. I wouldn’t change my major until much later because I wasn’t sure of the specifics of my interest, but that Service day left me wanting more of that experience and I hope to achieve that in whatever my future career and hobbies are.