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Will Galles

CprE 494

3/4/23

General Education Reflection

During my time here at Iowa State University I have had the opportunity to explore and

learn from classes outside of just my major of Computer Engineering. The classes that I have

taken of this variety have taught me a variety of skills and lessons that I would have not received

from my major classes alone. They have given me a broader understanding of the world that I

will be able to leverage in my future as an engineer. I have had the opportunity to take two

general education classes as of now at Iowa State and I am excited to take my last one in the up

coming semester. I had taken the remainder of my general education courses in high school

through a dual enrollment program. Overall, all of these have rounded out my engineering

education.

The first set of general education electives that I was introduced to were those that I took

in high school. The courses that would end up transferring in would be PSYCH 101 (Intro to

Psychology), SOC 134 (Intro to Sociology), HIST 201 (Intro to Western Civilization 1), and

SPAN 101 (Elementary Spanish 1). Even though all of these courses cover a wide range of

topics they all had the same effect on me of showing me the utility of higher education. Each of

these courses strengthened my desire to pursue a higher education while still in high school.

They were able to show me a wide array of topics that I did not previously have access to

coming from a small town and even smaller school. These classes showed me that there was

much more to learn in this world and that attending university would be the way to expand my

knowledge base. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity that these classes offered me while
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still in high school and they are responsible for setting me down the educational path that I am

currently on.

The first general education class that I had the opportunity of taking here at Iowa State

University would be ECON 101 (Intro to Microeconomics). This class was a integral part to the

success of my first year at Iowa State. This class gave me an outlet to explore outside of my

major while still learning very useful information for the future. The information that I learned in

this class is some of the most useful information outside of my major that I will still use in my

future job as an engineer. Even though as engineers we are capable of fixing almost any problem

that comes to us we live in a world of finite resources and this is where my learning in

economics will help me in the future. By knowing the basics of economics that this course

provided me I am able to make better decisions and therefore solutions based on the economics

of the inputs and outputs of my system. Overall the information that I learned in this class will

help me become a better engineer in the future.

The next general education class that I took at Iowa State is ARCH 321 (History of the

American City). This has been one of my most favorite classes during my four years here and

easily ranks in the top five classes that I have taken. This class gave me a very wide view of the

world we live in today and how the development of this country has shaped the socioeconomic

challenges that we see today. This class has reinforced the requirement to be an ethical engineer

and to work for the betterment of all. It has shown me that all humans are people even though we

come from different places and have different upbringings. It has shown me that I have the

responsibility to work for the betterment of all. This class is going to play an important role in

my search for full time employment as my time here at Iowa State draws to a close. I am going

to be looking for a career where I can work for the betterment of all people.
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Lastly I have the opportunity to take one more general education course in my last

semester at Iowa State. I am currently look at taking MGMT 371 (Organizational Behavior). My

goals in learning from this class is to learn about how a business works together. I want to learn

how members inside of a team can work better together along with how different teams inside of

an organization can work with each other. I want to learn these things so I can become a better

engineer not only by my self but for any team that I am a part of. I want to be able to work better

within teams and with people outside of my direct team. I am excited to take this class and

excited to see what I can all learn.

Overall the General Education classes that I have taken have had a tremendous impact on

my learning here at Iowa State. They have given me the opportunity to broaden my education

and given me to look at engineering from an outside perspective. There are many lesson that I

learned from these classes that I will take on to my full time career and will make me a better

engineer. I am grateful to have taken these classes and I believe that my education would not be

whole without them.