The first three semesters in my college life as a Science and Global Change Scholar student, in general, is memorable and has a huge positive impact on my personal and professional growth. From the SGC scholars colloquium, field trips, and supporting courses, I learn about how Earth, such a huge and complicated system work in depth. More importantly, the SGC scholars program also teaches me many important critical thinking skills which could extremely beneficial for my future study as a computer science major. What’s more, because of the SGC living and learning program, I make some of my closest friends here. As an international student who came to the U.S. after finishing high school in China, the friendship that I get from this program is invaluable for me. To start, as a computer science major, I think the hypothetical deductive method is a guiding principle that we can’t do anything without it in CS. In the last winter break, together with two of my friends in high school, we were working on a data science project online. The problem is that at one stage, we implicitly assumed that there was indeed some linear relationship inside our training data, but a lot of algorithms seemed not to work well. We had a hard time debugging the code, trying to figure out why machine learning algorithms didn’t have the desired performance in this case. Later using the knowledge about the hypothetical deductive method from SGC, I found this bug and reformulated the question. So instead of accepting that there is some linear relationship already, we formed a null hypothesis and applied the statistical testing methods that we learn from a statistics class. By the results of the statistical test, we have to retain our null hypothesis that there is actually no linear relationship in the training set. In fact, in a more general CS point of view, the hypothetical deductive method basically guide our program testing process. We have some falsifiable conjectures first, and then write the testing code, doing some experiments on our program, and see whether the results conflict with our previous hypothesis. Apart from the hypothetical deductive method, another important skill I learned from the SGC colloquium is how to detect whether someone correctly applies scientific toolbox in their research and see whether there are logical fallacies in their research process. From the SGC colloquium, we know the mindset of logical fallacies and how does the scientific research work in general. I remember one blog post that I read last semester, which is about applying machine learning algorithms to a specific text classification problem. Based only on a small sample size, they claimed that their models work much better than the traditional models. So, I downloaded their code and made some adjustments, trying to see whether it works on the larger sample size of the training set. However, the algorithms didn’t work as they said in the blog post. Their results were not reproducible, which conflicted the general principles of scientific research that we learn from the SGC colloquium. Later in the semester, I learned from my data science class (which is also an SGC scholar supporting course) that to get the desired results and therefore, researchers sometimes apply a technique called p-hacking. P-hacking includes cherry-picking data points in to get the desired p-values, or repeating experiments if they fail until they get the results that they want. From SGC colloquium, we know that P-hacking is conflicting the general principle of scientific research. Scientists should never assume the results before doing the experiments. Therefore, the SGC program teaches me many important lessons on how scientific research in general, for example, how do the funding work, what are the scientific toolbox, etcetera. Those are not covered in any other typical science course. Since I might want to pursue a Ph.D. degree in computer science, having a general understanding of scientific research is so important. Apart from what I’ve already mentioned above, reciprocal illumination would also be a key concept for my future career. The fields of computer science are developing so fast right now, and a lot of new evidence from new research would overturn the previous hypothesis. Therefore, given that there shall be no ground-truth in science, I should always be open to new concepts and hypotheses in my future study and career. Not only does scholar colloquiums practice my scientific and logical thinking skills, but also it challenges a lot of my original beliefs by the group discussion with fellow scholars from a diverse background. For example, this semester the “search for solution” group project that we do is about the stratospheric aerosol injection. We also have a lot of colloquies to discuss various approaches to counteract the impacts of global climate change. Originally, I’m very skeptical about those ideas, especially those geoengineering approaches like solar engineering, since they may sound too fancy and may not be achieved in the near future. However, through the research we do in this semester, we do see many benefits as well as the feasibility of sulfuric aerosols injection. In addition, the colloquies and readings we do really open my mind to various approaches like artificial leaves, direct air capture, smart grid, nuclear fusion, those I’ve never thought about before coming to SGC. Now I know that we could actually do so many things about climate change and many alternative energy methods are in fact not far in the future. In terms of the supporting courses, I took the AOSC200 weather and climate course last year. From this course, I learn in-depth about how the climate system on the Earth works, including but not limited to the water cycle, ocean current, El Niño phenomena, as well as climate change. Together with the SGC colloquium specifically in the second semester, I get a much deeper understanding of global climate change and the possible impacts of it in the future. Before coming here, I would think that climate change is just about the rise of temperatures that would cause the rise of sea levels and possibly kill many animals. But after finishing the SGC program and taking AOSC200, I know that the problem of climate change is not just about climate. For example, it could cause a poleward shift of the Tropics, which would consequently impact human health by the spread of some viruses such as Dengue fever. The cascading effects of climate change could influence our society from almost every aspect. Besides AOSC200, I also take MATH340 as the supporting course. It’s a tough math course that combines linear algebra and multivariable calculus in one semester at a much deeper level compared to the traditional math classes. However, it changes my view of mathematics and it’s the primary reason that I decided to double major in math. The abstract and logical-mathematical thinking that I gained from this course would definitely help my future study in not only mathematics but also in computer science and every other discipline. Looking back at these semesters with SGC, apart from the coursework, I also meet a lot of new people here and a few of them become my closest friends now. For me as an international student, such a living and learning program really helps me adapt to college life quickly. I get to know some of the fellow scholars living on the same floor, who are sharing the similar academic and personal interests as me. We studied together for the exam and worked together on some class projects. In fact, for the data science course (CMSC320) I take, I’m developing a research project on fake news analysis together with Chandan, who lives on the same floor in Centreville as me. We get to know each other from the service day, the first day in the SGC program. Also, for the scholars robotics class (CPSS240) that I’m taking this semester, I work together with Nick, who also lived on the same floor in Centreville last year. We are collaborating with each other and teaching the kids from Cesar Chavez elementary school how to code the robots. Every week, Nick and I, together with two other group members from the STS program, work on a lesson plan before the site visit. After the site visit, we basically discuss how we could improve our teaching for the next site visit. We propose a grand challenge at the beginning of the semester, which is to write codes for a battling robot. So initially, we are all skeptical about whether we could communicate many ideas in computer science effectively to those kids and teach them how to write such a complicated program. However, in the end, all of our students manage the grand challenge and begin to think about problems in a computer science way. The service-learning experience that I have this semester is really enjoyable and practice my teaching and communication skills a lot. Although the robotics class is run by STS, not the SGC program, it does teach me the true value of friendship, community engagement, and service-learning. Because of this robotics program, I feel like I’m actually contributing to the big scholars community and without this opportunity, I won’t learn so much teaching and interpersonal skills. In conclusion, my first three semesters with the SGC program are excellent. I feel kind of void for graduating from the SGC program at this moment. I should thank Dr. Holtz and Dr. Merck for every exciting colloquium that they gave. It opens my mind about climate change, as well as lots of other subjects including geology, history, anthropology, etc. Their colloquiums provide me with an opportunity to think about the big picture of the world and a lot of interconnectedness between different disciplines. Moving on from the SGC program, I will apply the critical thinking skills along with a lot of other knowledge I've learned from it to my future study. Thank you SGC!!!