Talon Stromgren

10/14/19
General Education Reflection
General Education courses are a required portion of the curriculum and you can choose
what you want to learn. There are many different topics you can choose, from history, to
psychology and everything in between. These classes help grow our general knowledge and we
can take what we learned and find a way to apply it to our jobs.
One of the general education courses I took was German 371. This is a history course that
covers the Holocaust through text, image, and memory. This was by far my favorite general
education course as well as the most interesting. One relevant thing I learned was how different
stories and views there were from the Holocaust. There are so many different perspectives on
what people went through and it was incredible to see them. One connection between this and
solving future engineering problems is that while you may have one task, there are many ways
and perspectives on how you should approach the problem. You must take into consideration all
perspectives so that you can make an informed decision when solving a problem.
A general education course I took at a community college was Psychology 101. This
course was introductory, and it covered the basics to psychology. One major takeaway I had
from that class was how people’s brains and personalities vary greatly. This gave me a better
understanding of why certain people act like they do and taught me to think about situations
differently. This can be applied to solving future engineering problems by understanding that not
everyone thinks the same way. You must look at a problem from all angles to get a better
understanding of how exactly you should tackle the problem. This information can be used to
look at social problems as well. Many people don’t think about how others may approach a
situation and not understand why a certain person acts a certain way. Learning about different
personalities and reasoning can help provide a clearer understanding of others.
Overall, I enjoyed the general education classes that I took both at a community college
and at Iowa State. I love that I was able to choose what I wanted to learn about. My takeaways
made me a more knowledgeable person about other certain topics and gave me better
understanding of the world. I will be able to take what I learned and apply it to my life outside of
school.