10/19/2023

General Education Reflection

Eli Schaffer
General education classes, often referred to as “Gen Eds” help engineers get a feeling for the real
world and what goes on in it. Gen Eds are the foundational building blocks of most student’s academic
careers. These subjects span so many topics and learning styles that it’s hard to keep them all straight.
Some of these classes may not directly relate to the engineering work that we do, but we can take
thought processes and use them in engineering. Taking these classes can help us better understand what
the public looks for in products that we manufacture, cities we design, or ways to effectively manage
people.

In my general education classes I have learned a lot about what goes into making the world spin
and what part engineering doesn’t have in that. I understand managerial roles and responsibilities as
well as different principles that make a project desirable. Meeting the needs of your client is always
important but we can always go above and beyond what they expect. This is always my goal when I work
on a project, whether for my professional or academic career. I can apply these classes in a way that
helps me understand why we use the technical ways we do in engineering to solve problems. I often
used engineering principles in my other classes to help me with projects and problems there. This is just
how I think as a person which was a lot harder to do outside of an engineering setting.

Using the fundamentals I learned in Principles of Marketing, or otherwise known as MKT 340, I
learned about how to effectively market a product to a specific group of people. During the class we
called them focus groups and we were able to analyze each component of the groups to make sure that
they felt that every need that they had were met. This can be applied to engineering with the same
thought process. Engineers have a customer (focus group) and they want to make sure they design
(market) exact what the customer needs. This was an interesting class to take because I was one of the
few engineers in my class and I enjoyed working with people outside of my major. Another aspect of that
class was that we had to invent a new “product” and bring it to market with a short video pitch. This can
be used in engineering because when we meet customers and discuss their needs, it’s almost the inverse
of what we did there. This goes the same for managers and project descriptions.

Another class that directly applies to engineering would be my MGMT 370 class. It’s called
Management of Organizations, and we learned how different people benefit from different management
and learning styles. We learned about lots of different management types, such as a matrix or hierarchal
styles. It helped me better understand how management roles work and what type of management style
I prefer. I do plan on becoming a manager someday, so it was a class that benefits both my personal and
professional goals. When I become a manager, I can use these topics and styles to be a better manager
and make sure that my team works effectively and efficiently. I plan on taking Energy and the
Environment, ENV S 324, this spring. We will learn about both renewable and non-renewable energy
sources from Earth. This can be applied directly to electrical engineering because as electrical engineers
we need power and electricity from somewhere.

General education classes can be both helpful and harmful to a studying engineer if the wrong
classes are chosen. Choosing classes that are related to your major or that show you the background of
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your major helps you understand what goes into your major. Gen eds go beyond fulfilling a degree audit
and checking boxes. They give us insight into the real world and how engineering interacts with it.