General Education Electives Reflection

My classes at Iowa State have helped open my eyes to many different perspectives and
viewpoints. What helped me broaden my horizon regarding perspectives is the general elective
courses I took while I was here.
I took Religion 322, which was a course covering the new testament of the Bible.
Through this course, we had to read over portions of the Bible and additional readings to come
prepared for class the next day for discussions. It was a reasonably fast-paced class that taught
me so many different things. The first thing it taught me was that I was not prepared for my
professor’s lecture style. Nearly every course I had taken up until that point had been very linear
in how lectures were laid out. This professor seemed to jump from one topic to another
randomly, and it was challenging for my mind to get on the same page. Through this, I learned
how to listen to people who interact differently with the world, and after I got used to it, I felt
like learning with him was much more enjoyable.
Another course I took as an elective was Psych 280, which was a course covering social
psychology. One thing that was great from taking this class was how directly applicable nearly
every course topic was. Almost everything covered in the lecture was things I had either
experienced directly or had heard of. Notably, one of the biggest takeaways from this course for
me was the importance of recognizing bias. As engineers, we always seem to have one way that
we like to lean when implementing a solution because of an internal bias towards it. Recognizing
these biases against other ideas is critical in letting other ideas work.
One class that I took with some friends was SP ED 250, which covered special education
topics in schools. This course has absolutely nothing to do with a career that I will pursue, but it
was such a different dynamic for me to be in. The whole mindset of the course was different than
anything I had previously taken. In my eyes, engineering is all about problem-solving and
finding solutions to complex problems efficiently. This course’s mindset seemed to be to care for
every student, no matter how much individualized attention they need. It was eye-opening for me
to see just how different things are taught at Iowa State. I almost always get stuck in the mindset
of engineering for my courses without realizing that the goals of so many other vital careers are
vastly different than what I pursue.
The last general education credit I will discuss is Music 102, which is all about music
listening. I’m very well-versed in different music genres ranging from folk, EDM, heavy metal,
indie, and just about everything in between. This course taught me that I have much to learn with
different music styles out in the world. We went over so many kinds of music that I cannot even
remember all of them at this point. We learned about the steel pan drum within some Caribbean
types of music and even baroque music. My biggest takeaway from this is that even if I consider
myself knowledgeable in a subject, there is always more to learn. Learning is something that is a
lifelong endeavor!
 Looking back on the general education courses I took; I cannot help but admire how
much they impacted my time at Iowa State. They truly helped me see new perspectives that I had
not previously considered before, and I greatly value them for showing me this. Nearly every
person in my engineering courses comes from different backgrounds and perspectives, and this
becomes even more diverse when I look at so many other different majors. Learning to
communicate and understand these other perspectives over my time at Iowa State has been such
a treat, and I hope to experience even more wonderful views after graduation!