Reflecting: A Semester Of Growth

Throughout this semester, I was challenged in a number of ways that provoked personal growth as both a student and as a human. The Geneseo Learning Outcomes for Baccalaureate Education played a large role in promoting that personal growth. First, this course above all required critical thinking through evaluating held assumptions on things such as medical voluntourism and consent among African-Americans and medical treatment. I was challenged to come up with my own views on the topic of medical voluntourism, and dive deep enough in the topic to come up with my own solution to some of the problems found in it. Second, communication was another huge part of this course. Having group discussions in nearly every class meeting was helpful in so many ways. Engaging in discussion on books, articles and other topics helped me understand the information more clearly and develop a sense of understanding that I was able to implement in future class discussions. Group discussions also inspired several of my blog posts this semester, as ideas would bounce of members in groups that maybe gave different insight on a topic. Lastly, this class was largely based on collaboration, particularly when it came to our final collaborative course statement. Geneseo’s learning outcome for collaboration states “To engage others in developing collaborative solutions; to experiment, take risks, and learn from mistakes; to enable, encourage, and recognize contributions to collaborative efforts by all group members; to manage and share work fairly and respectfully; to envision, promote, consider, and respond to diverse viewpoints.” And when I look at what the final project was, it was all of that. We developed solutions as a group to problems outlined in the course, and we encourage and recognized group members discussions both presently and in the forms filled out at the end of each class. As you can see, there are many ways in which Geneseo’s learning outcomes were heavily found in this course. Through the practice of these GLOBE outcomes, I will be able to take what I have learned this semester and apply it in future classes and in my career. I learned so much about what it means to work as a group to accomplish a task, and how important it is to draw conclusions based on valuable information. Both of these things are necessary skills that will come in handy next semester, as well as years from now when in my work environment.