The UMD College Park Scholars SGC program has proved to be a transformative experience, equipping me with invaluable skills that not only enhanced my understanding of environmental issues but also positioned me for success across a spectrum of college classes.
Though most of the skills I have learned from the science and global change colloquiums are specific to our course content, there are various scientific models and concepts that I have found myself being able to apply in various other courses. This was most notably done in the courses pertaining to my major. As a hearing and speech major I work closely with data collection and statistics, and due to the constant research and growth of the field, I have had to learn how to read research papers properly and to conduct my own research studies as well. In my HESP300 course specifically, a large part of the curriculum is reading current research articles on topics such as language acquisition and word recognition and extracting relevant information to fully understand the study being conducted. On top of this, I have had ample opportunity to employ the hypothetico-deductive method of science when we attempt to replicate studies in the course.
An example of one of these replica studies that we have conducted in class was based on the Ganong effect. This speech-related topic is about how if our brains hear a word with one wrong speech sound, like ‘k’-ift instead of ‘gift’, our brains tend to use past knowledge of the word and assume that we are hearing the correct word, gift. This is a widely researched topic in my major field, so to test it in class we narrowed down our ideas from past observations to form a falsifiable hypothesis. Next, we had several students listen to a series of words that each had one incorrect phoneme (aka speech sound). From there, we used these results to disprove our hypothesis, thus leading us to our research conclusion from which we could now make inferences. Had I not gained such a deep understanding of the scientific method or the hypothetico-deductive model I do not believe I would have been able to engage so effectively with the research articles and studies, such as this, conducted in my hearing and speech classes.
Aside from this, I have also found a less obvious skill I picked up from our SGC courses is the ability to catch or identify logical fallacies when I see others or myself using them. Though I have come to realize that falling victim to the use of these fallacies is more common than previously thought, one specific example comes to mind from my Kinesiology 285 course. Several weeks ago as classes were heading into midterms, one of my friends from the course, Sarah, forgot the due date of one of our midterm papers. My other friend Hannah claimed the due date was November 10th, but our friend Michael argued that it was the 12th. Michael based his date of the 12th off of the syllabus calendar, however, Hannah based her date of the 10th off of the due date that her sister had when she took the class the previous year, with a different teacher I might add. Though the 10th was in fact the due date the previous year, this was the specific experience of Hannah's sister and subject to change. In the end, Hannah was using the anecdotal fallacy to support her reasoning for the 10th being the correct due date. This fallacy is essentially the use of a personal experience or isolated situation as support or reasoning for the validity of your claim. Michael on the other hand had his argument backed up by the syllabus, a current and valid source of evidence in this case.
Through presentations, group projects, and discussion board assignments based on science-based books, I learned to convey complex scientific concepts in a clear and scholarly manner. This proficiency in communication has been a tremendous asset in courses such as Physics 102 which demanded concise articulation of ideas, enabling me to excel in essays, presentations, and discussions. This was especially true for our final project which required that I explain the physics of sound for an instrument of my choice. In my Food Science 112 class, I have similarly been able to take away specific skills from SGC and apply them here. The course is based on group assignments and we are expected to collaborate on all major projects. In the SGC colloquium, we frequently used the discussion boards and were sorted into groups for in-class assignments as well. Going into this course, I felt that SGC had prepared me well and given me the necessary tools to be an effective communicator with my peers, which was especially important when trying to coordinate the completion of our final essay project when one of our members had decided to drop the course. To move forward and finish we needed to discuss how we would re-allocate our time and work.
My academic and social experience and overall course success have been especially aided by the close group of friends I have developed within the class. Though I will not name the particular students, there was one specific time this semester when I, unfortunately, had to miss a large in-class assignment because I was sick. During class time, the assignment was completed in groups and the questions were answered based on the varied readings that were assigned to different members of the group. I attempted to complete the assignment independently but hit a wall because I of course did not have the reading knowledge that my group mates would have had. Luckily for me, some of the members of my friend group from class had been assigned the readings I needed to understand to be able to fill in the knowledge gaps on this topic. They set aside time to then meet with me and explain each of their readings, even though they had already done so in class, so that I could finish the assignment.
For the majority of the semester, excluding the previous instance, I have been a present and active participant in class and the course in general. This was especially true of the scholar field trip to DC from last year, where we were divided into small groups and sent on a scavenger hunt to different museums. Though each member of my group in this activity gave their full participation, I do feel that I went above and beyond to lead the group. I did this by creating an order by which we could travel through each of the museums to find each of the scavenger hunt items fastest. I then took the evidence photos of each item and crossed them off our list as we went. This experience gave me a chance to engage with my classmates and exercise leadership in a major assignment, which I truly appreciated having the opportunity to do.
The SGC colloquium class has challenged me in many ways. It has especially pushed me to think about topics that I had previously not considered as having two sides to them. One particular conversation we had that challenged me was regarding the use of scientific data gathered as a result of unethical scientific practices. I had seen this as a very black-and-white topic previously, assuming that data gathered this way should strictly not be used. After further discussing it in class and hearing of how common this is, however, my firm stance has definitely softened. Though I have not completely changed my opinion, I now see how this poses a real ethical dilemma in the scientific community. The expansion of science is based on experimentation, when results are gathered from an unethical experiment they still hold some degree of value and could help the lives of many, and this is why it is a largely controversial topic.
Overall, the Science and Global Change courses have been a significant contributor to my academic success, providing me with a robust foundation of knowledge on environmental science and other science-based topics, interdisciplinary perspectives, a heightened sense of environmental responsibility, and practical skills applicable across diverse subjects. My chosen major of hearing and speech science is very different from the overarching theme of the SGC program, however, I will continue to draw upon the pragmatic skills that the curriculum has taught me and allowed me to strengthen. As I navigate my college journey, the impact of this course continues to shape my academic approach to many assignments and contribute to my overall growth as a student and environmentally conscious person.