General Education Reflection

As a senior at Iowa State University, I have had a very interesting experience throughout the last 4 years. I am a Computer Engineering major and have taken several General Education courses during my time at Iowa State. The general education courses I took were not within my major, but all have helped me to becoming a better engineer. These courses have given me aspects that will help me in future jobs in my field. The courses I took were of the following: Introduction to Sociology, Social Psychology, Introduction to Energy Systems, Speech Communication, and Ethnic and Race Relations. After taking the Sociology and Psychology courses, I was able to grasp a better understanding of people and the way they act in groups. These classes seem like they wouldnt help out my major at all, but they actually have a lot to do with it. In the engineering field, many companies and class work are being done in groups. Having the knowledge of how people interact in groups and also how to work with them in an efficient way. The race and ethnic relations course helped understand discrimination and stereotypes in the job field. I did not realize how much these, invisible barriers, have such negative effects on the lives of various ethnicities. I was also enrolled in Speech Communication. This course was very useful for my major, because a lot of my work needs to be communicated to others. Speech Communication has helped me prepare for presentations, and to better get my ideas across when working in groups. The other General Education course I took was Introduction to Energy Systems. This course had a lot of global and societal effects of various energy systems. This course really brings out how harmful various energy systems are to the environment. We completed two papers throughout the semester that were very technical, and graded very technical. These papers involved a

lot of research to complete. I feel these reports helped me for entering the engineering field, as I will be doing many technical reports.