General Education Reflection

The general education courses I have taken at Iowa State University have been a useful experience for me in my engineering career path. Although general education courses are not directly related to engineering, they can often be of use when thing about engineering problems. The courses I took, History 201: Introduction to Western Civilization, History 325: Society and Politics in England 1525-1700, and History 450: Colonial America are all general education courses I took at Iowa State university. I also took a personal finance course elsewhere. These general education courses gave me a perspective that engineering classes did not.

 

My history courses taught me about past problems that we’ve have faced and solution that were invented to solve them. These inventions and innovations are the lifeblood of engineering and helped me to be creative in my own problem solving. In history 201, we learned of the Greek wars and roman wars and about how fortresses were built and sieged. This information was useful for thinking about how to foresee what your foes may try to do and build protection against that. Something that is very Important in cyber security. We learned about the intricate parts of the British government in history 325 and this helped me to determine ethical viewpoints and determining what is good for the people. In history 450, we learned about the expansion of trade in the Americas. This taught me about creating the right tools for the job, like modes of transportation and preserving for trading, or efficient ways to solve problems in todays world.

 

Currently we are facing difficult economic times, and my general education courses focuses on these times in history often. The knowledge from those courses helps me to understand the current struggles we are facing, even if they are different in nature and magnitude. This kind of knowledge can help engineers to design and create tools and methods to help prevent or fix issues such as these as we have seen throughout history. We are also facing numerous threats in todays world. Online threats especially are growing in this day and age and my history courses have taught me about how people think and act and what people value. Although these courses speak of a time long ago, people have not changed as much as you may think. This knowledge can help me to create safeguards against bad actors and defend the good from the bad. History can teach us many things, even for a computer engineer, there are many events in history that can help us improve in our ability to protect and prevent tragedies that have happened in the past, or foresee issues that may be in the future.