Zachary DeMaris

CPRE 494

CPRE494 General Education Reflection

In addition to the core computer engineering curriculum at Iowa State, I have had the
opportunity to explore beyond that and take a few general education courses as well. In my opinion, its
important to be a well-rounded engineer and take classes outside the college of engineering. General
education courses offer perspective outside of engineering that can help you become a better engineer.
Not only do you learn alternative content, you also get to meet alternative types of people. Working
with people from many different backgrounds can help you understanding engineering from someone’s
non-technical point of view.

My favorite general education class I have taken at Iowa State is Management 310. The course
name is entrepreneurship and innovation. You get to learn about things such as how to start a business
and the mindset of an entrepreneur. It was interesting because the computer engineering program is
geared more towards getting a job at graduation as opposed to starting your own business, it offered
insight into what starting a business would look like. I think its valuable to take an entrepreneurship
course because many of the most popular tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Facebook
were founded by engineers. The next generation of companies like these could be founded by an
engineering student that decided to learn more about entrepreneurship.

Economics 355 is another general education course I have taken. The course is about
international trade and finance. I learned a lot about the world economy such as trade models,
imports/exports, and currency exchange. A lot of engineering firms rely heavily on trade between
countries, this course taught me a lot about what affects those relations. Understanding more about the
global economy is can be valuable to an engineer, it explains a lot of the motivations behind the
engineering work we do. An issue currently facing the United State I learned in this class is that lots of
countries tax imports from the United States. This can make it hard for U.S. firms to compete globally,
especially engineering firms.

Economics 101 is a course that discusses the principles of microeconomics. In contrast to Econ
355, Econ 101 focuses more on the economic behavior of a single product. We discussed things such as
supply and demand, theories of production, consumption, and pricing, and present discounted value.
Typically, an engineer focuses on building a single or small set of products. Understanding the factors
that affect the supply and demand of that product can be valuable. For example, if you understand that
the product you work on has a lot of supply and little demand, its probably very important as an
engineer that you design it carefully, so you can be competitive in the marketplace. An example today is
smartphones, the supply of smartphones is high, so engineering firms understand that they must build
their phones carefully to gain the customer demand.

Sociology 134 discusses theories of social interaction and group behavior. I got to learn about
the social relationships between many groups as well as learn about the issues facing many social
groups. Engineers work with people every day. The backgrounds of the people can vary widely. Soc 134
taught me a lot about the social interaction amongst people and offers a lot perspective that is valuable
for a future engineer.

When I first came to Iowa State, I was skeptical about having to take general education courses.
I thought to myself “I’m a computer engineering student, why do I need these classes?” Now that it is
my last year, I can say I am glad that I had to take them. As engineers we can’t just live in a bubble and
 Zachary DeMaris
CPRE 494

only learn technical things. Often the non-technical needs of people are what motivate engineering,
which is why it is so important to have an understanding outside of just engineering.