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Cumulative Reflection

As an undergraduate at Iowa State University, the college does not only provide students

with advanced schooling. In addition to the knowledge, I have gained from studying at ISU, I

was welcomed into a community with open arms, ensuring that I was always being my best self.

This community is crucial for incoming freshmen as college is the first step people take into

leaving home and trying new experiences. As a student who grew up well over a 5-hour drive

away from Ames, being welcomed as such really impacts your new life as a college student.

Throughout my stay here, I have taken a multitude of different technical courses, ranging from

circuits, embedded systems, networking, and digital logic. On top of those I have taken plenty of

general education courses in order to gain another perspective of the world. The culmination of

all these classes and projects I experienced here at Iowa State have well prepared me to solve

engineering issues in the real world.

Several courses and even situations at Iowa State are geared to pose questions on ethical

issues in the world. Whether it be through discussions and debates through English or discussing

engineering ethics on a project, Iowa State offered plenty of exposure. In addition, we discuss

issues on society itself, and the evolution of what is expected of people in the world. This is

vastly present during computer engineering courses, as technology has become a necessity in

daily life, yet the expansion of technology leads to questions on how the economy and society

across the globe will be affected. The opportunities of issues are seemingly endless! And yet, the

courses here do not just focus on the future. Plenty of courses in computer engineering are all

about the beginning of computers and how it has improved year-by-year. Learning about

technology through a past perspective is essential to computer engineers, as with it they can
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obtain a better understanding of why computer do certain things in certain ways, making it much

easier for a student to design their own form of technology.

Another important lesson during my time at Iowa State was how to problem solve, and I

don’t mean mathematically. Many people immediately think of school when it comes to problem

solving, but it is actually so much simpler than that. Problem solving involves nearly every

aspect of life. For example, say you are stuck on a problem for some homework, your problem

isn’t just in the literal sense, it is also “what resources can I access to help me?” When struggling

in class Iowa State provides office hours with teachers, tutoring, or even just the library.

Whenever needing help on something discussed in lecture, I would always go to the teacher’s

office hours to get a better understanding of the material. In fact, I felt getting help is so useful

for students that I became a calculus tutor myself: it was a nice way to allow me to give back to

the community that has already given me so much. Lastly, the library is an absolute must for

anyone needing more source material or a quiet learning environment. These resources are

crucial for students to gain a perspective of the material further than the scope of the base course.

To further expand on my time as a tutor, working at the Academic Success Center not

only helped me provide students in need, but it also gave me a role as a leader and helped me

hone my math capabilities. As a tutor, you do not just go over lecture material: there is no “plan”

given to you for each session. You have to sit down and write your own plan for your group of

students. Its also important to keep students’ questions in mind, so you can provide help for the

specific areas that a student may need.

Overall, my experience has led me to the realization that there is an infinite amount of

knowledge to be obtained in the world. When first completing high school, I thought I finally

understood how everything in the world functions, yet college has proved that I will never have
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full knowledge of everything, as there is way too much information held in the world; however,

that is not a bad realization. Knowing that there will always be more knowledge to learn is a

motivator to continually explore the world and meet new people. In addition, this realization let

me notice that many of the world’s problems have several different answers and knowing the

different methods of problem solving can help you invent better answers to these issues.