“We want to change the future of the world through education” I think this accurately describes most teachers/professors purpose for teaching (or at least it perfectly defines why decided I wanted to teach). I like that you took a step back to really get the big picture of this class and why we are all here.
Author: Christina Devine
Comment on The Hunger for Humanities in Today’s World by Christina Devine
Great post! I definitely agree that the humanities are important. While I never really felt pressure from my parents about what major to choose, I do feel like one of the reasons I chose engineering was because of the job security after I graduated. In school I always preferred math and science to the humanities courses. I think that up until taking this course I took the humanities for granted and always hated all of the Curriculum for Liberal Education (CLE) requirements because they took time away from the “more important” Engineering classes I needed/wanted to take. I wish there were some sort of seminar or even just one class during the intro to engineering course where they would explain why the humanities are so important.
Comment on Parallel lines by Christina Devine
Great analogy! I definitely agree that technology is changing the way we we conduct research and learn. I guess the question is, how big is this change and is it a good thing or a bad thing? When I was reading Carr’s article I wasn’t really able to see where he was coming from because I grew up having google at my fingertips so therefore I don’t know how not having google would effect the way I learned/processed things, just like someone who has never cooked on a coal pot wouldn’t really know what they are missing out on by cooking on a gas stove.
Comment on From Tired, to Hopeful, to Mad, to Empowered by Christina Devine
Great post! I really liked how you were able to relate the readings to what is going on in your life right now but then also took time to talk about what this looks like in the class room. I am engineer as well and I agree that for the most part professors hate to bring up anything even slightly political even if it is relevant to our class. I did appreciate my one professor last semester who spent about 5 at the beginning of class the day after the election talking about how upset he was and what this could mean for us as environmental engineers. He started off by saying how he doesn’t typically like talking about politics in class (that he felt it was somewhat inappropriate) then he said “but wow…this is sort of a different thing I would say” and talked about how it has a major impact in our field (Environmental Engineering) and the environment in general. He was visually distraught and before he actually started to lecture he said something a long the lines of “and I hardly feel like lecturing today…but I’m going to…” and that was it. There wasn’t any discussion, we just went right back into the course work. While it was refreshing to see a professor show some emotion in an engineering class (something I don’t think I had ever seen before) it still wasn’t much. I think the whole class could have benefited from a discussion but as engineers I guess we are expected to stay on course to make sure we learn all the material laid out in our syllabus so we don’t have time to talk about real world events…and I think this is something that really needs to change in our field.
Comment on Hidden Brain by Christina Devine
“The far better approach is to put race on the table, to ask [children] to unpack the associations that they are learning, to help us shape those associations in more effective ways.”
This is something that really struck out to me from the reading as well. I think it is important to discuss things that may make people feel “uncomfortable” rather than allowing people to suppress their inner thoughts.
Comment on The Hidden Brain Also Has Hidden Bias by Christina Devine
Great point about unconscious biases, I think that is something that is very important to keep in mind and why it is really important to talk about issues so that people are aware of there own biases and can work to act without prejudice. I also like that you pointed out that it seems like when diversity is discussed at Virginia Tech people with disabilities seem to be left out, this is something that I hadn’t really though about until you brought it up but it is a good point that should be addressed at the university level.
Comment on Increase in quantity at the expense of decrease in quality by Christina Devine
I also agree that the requirements for “global and social context, engineering ethics, and lifelong learning” are extremely important in the engineering field. The only ethics I remember in undergrad was in my intro to engineering class where they pretty much just had us read some general ethical standards and maybe we had a short discussion about it (it was a while ago so I don’t really remember). It wasn’t until I took Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Public Policy (CEE 5984) that I really started to see how important ethics is in the engineering field.
Comment on Increase in quantity at the expense of decrease in quality by Christina Devine
I also agree that the requirements for “global and social context, engineering ethics, and lifelong learning” are extremely important in the engineering field. The only ethics I remember in undergrad was in my intro to engineering class where they pretty much just had us read some general ethical standards and maybe we had a short discussion about it (it was a while ago so I don’t really remember). It wasn’t until I took Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Public Policy (CEE 5984) that I really started to see how important ethics is in the engineering field.
Comment on Networked learning…is it useful? by Christina Devine
I really liked the point you made about the difference in Networked Learning for graduate students vs. undergrad, it’s something that I hadn’t though about but really does make sense. I am still at the point where I don’t really enjoy blogging but I’m hoping to learn more about the benefits it can bring throughout this class and maybe that will change my opinion.
