Andrew Vogler

CprE 494: General Education Reflection

Throughout my time at Iowa State I have been able to take advantage of the courses

outside the engineering curriculum to help broaden my perspectives. Taking courses that

involve different methods of learning and thinking were advantageous to my learning. I not only

got to learn about other subjects that held my interest but also improve upon skills that I was not

as familiar with. Taking classes outside of my major also helped me become better at presenting

engineering terminology to non-engineers without sounding like I am speaking a foreign

language.

The first elective I took at Iowa State was ECON 101: Intro to Microeconomics. I took this

course my first semester of college and so pretty much everything about studying was still new

to me. It taught me to think about time management from a more practical sense. Worrying

about balancing my engineering grades was difficult enough but I was reminded by this class

that engineering isn’t the only important thing I’ll learn about in school. This has been useful to

my career as an engineer since engineering companies also run under the laws of economics

and job availability is subject to change. It taught me put value to different things in my life so I

make smart choices.

The second elective I took was not for another two years and that was JL MC 477:

Diversity in the Media. I originally took the course because I wanted to try an online course but

to my surprise, it ended up being very valuable. I remember when in one of the units, I learned

about the Tulsa Race Riots, a terrible show of racism post civil war era, and was shocked that I

never learned about it in high school. This class helped me become more sensitive to the things

I would say and the preconceived judgements my mind would resort to when I would be in

contact with another person. This class also helped me take a more positive approach to
 Andrew Vogler

trusting others in group projects. While it is easy to get annoyed with someone who isn’t doing

as much work, I sometimes forget to consider what else might be going on in their life that is

slowing things down. This is relevant in the engineering world since engineers at some point or

another will have to work on teams and being aware of other people’s culture, religion, and

gender helps when discerning how to talk with one another.

The last elective, that I am currently taking is GERMAN 101: Elementary German I. I

decided to take this course after studying abroad in Ireland and having a strong desire to

practice learning another language. I realized it would be hard to become fluent in any language

with 1 year left of college but it did make sense to practice the approach to learning a new

language in case that opportunity presented itself again. This class has been helpful to my time

as an engineer because it’s required me to figure out how to approach learning an entirely new

subject. Pretty much all of the courses I’ve taken in the last 1.5 years have been build off of

previous knowledge and German 101 has been a test to see how I can approach learning an

entirely new subject. From my internship experience, this is a very helpful thing to know how to

do since I’ve been introduced to lots of new tools and languages over my internships and it

requires the ability to pick up new subjects.

Engineers are responsible for solving many of the nation’s most complicated problems.

With that in mind, it is very important to take in all information and see the bigger picture as an

engineer. My Gen-Eds have helped me to think critically about the way I solve every problem

(even the simple ones!) and how my decisions and actions affect others. I have a desire to work

with a company with a national presence since I enjoy travelling. I believe it is very important to

understand how the product you are working on affects the lives of people and all the

non-technical aspects of life relate to the business you are apart of. I believe my Gen-Eds have

played a significant role in how I think about those.