Ma

Yongquan Ma
Professor: Carlisi
ESL 33B
10/22/15

Environmental protector
Section1:
According to the research from Internet; during the past thirty years,
the groundwater underneath L.A area has been dramatically decreased 100
ft. When I first read this, I was shocked. Every day, there are more than one
animal or one plant facing extinction. However, the majority of the society
still have realized the dangerous of this situation. If we just keep what we are
harming the environment; at the end the earth will still survived, but we will
not. We have to protect the environment more importantly to protect
ourselves.
Ever since I was a child, I had a great interesting on environmental
channels on TV. I was attracted by the beauty of the earth and I wanted to
discover the secrets in it by myself. Couple years ago, the weather in China
has dramatically changed. The sky was no longer blue, I couldn't see any
clouds with birds anymore. The industries in China released too much carbon
oxide, carbon dioxide, and other polluted gas. Those gasses combined
together and became a pollution. That was the first time. I had realized how
detrimental things could lead. I didn't want to see my "mother" China was

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been tortured. I want to make a change, try my personal best to make a

progress. Hence, I talked with my parents and made a decision, which was to
come to the USA to study environmental engineering.
Environmental engineering is a course to learn more about the
environment. The reason I chose to come to the USA is because the
techniques are more advanced, and China is still a developing country. My
desire is to learn the new techniques and bring it back to China and
contribute to my country. Before I came to the USA, I had a great fantasy
about my future; I will learn some useful skills and techniques easily and go
back to China to change the environment. However, things didn't turn out
very well. I took environmental studies last year. I was hoping I could make
some progress, but there were lots of difficult vocabularies that I didn't
understand. While I was depressed, I randomly watched a video on Youtube.
The video is about a young man who wants to be successful, so he asked a
guru about how to become famous. The guru told him: when you want to be
successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful. (How
bad do you want it?) This video motivated me, I realized that I should not
give up on my goals, quitting is an opinion for those people who are weak,
and that aint me.
After watching the video, it brought me back from depression, I told
myself in front of the mirror: if I can take it, I can make it. Therefore, I worked
very hard and eventually achieved a good grade with my studies, more
importantly I learned lots useful knowledge. My environmental professor, she

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did not only teach us knowledge, but she also taught us how to develop
critical thinking skills. Personally, I think critical thinking skills is the most
important part in our daily life.
Section 2:
By chance, I met an expert from environmental engineering career.
He was invited to make a speech about the environmental science. After the
speech, I felt like was attracted by the fascinating talk. Therefore, I went up
to him and asked something questions about the environment. Throughout
the conservation between him and I about my future career, I was not only
achieved a better understanding of Environmental Engineering but also
realized that this is the right course to me, which is suitable for my future
desires.
The expert demonstrated about the some professional talking in this
area and talked about the discourse community in this career. Such as you
will be required to understand and use multiple scientific words, which might
be related to chemistry and biology. More than often, this job requires very
formal language usage in daily working, because it is a job about structures,
therefore, every margin is extremely important and has to be calculated over
hundred times in this career. For the daily conversations with collies, this job
doesn't require very technical vocabularies. Moreover, the working
environment will be required in nature or outside of the buildings.
For this project, the questions I have prepared some questions to ask
my professor Li, who has Ph.D. degree in environment science. I did some

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research on the Internet before, for the conclusion, I decided to ask my

professor about how's critical thinking will affect in Environmental
Engineering? What role of language skill will be played in this career? What
my discourse community is going to be? By asking professor these questions,
I was looking forward to having a better understanding about this career and
to know what I will need to focused on during my future study. Therefore I
made a plan, I wrote the couple questions on the paper and brought them
with me to ask the professor.
From my professor, I realized that I have the lots to improved, such
as my English skills and my critical thinking skills. Indeed, I understood that
critical thinking is very important in this field, having this ability is like icing
on the cake. At this modern age, critical thinking will lead innovation, and it
is the key to lead the progressive era. On the other hand, English skills are
also required as an essential ability in this field. However, we have a
consensus opinion about how important of English will be played in my future
career.
The thing worth to be mentioned is: this time, I fully understood the
meaning of discourse community. During this conversation, I understood that
discourse community is a group of people who share the same interests,
working in the same field, and communicates in certain preferred ways.
Normally the discourse community has broadly agreed with their common
goals. For instances, I will be working as an environmental engineer, hence
whoever has the similar work, like engineers or environmental scientists, will

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be my discourse communities. In addition, Dr. Li also mentioned that:

Environmental engineering requires a very official language usage. It is not
like to be an artist or someone who works at a creating career. To
communicating with collies and bosses during the work, like writing an email
or a work report, you will be asked to use perfect English. (Li)
Having a good English will help me to communicate with my boss
and co-workers more efficiency. Environmental Engineering is not a solo
work, you will have to corporate with the rest of your team members. Hence,
communication skills play an indispensable role in this career.
Section 3:
Throughout this conversation with Dr.Li, I felt like I upgraded myself
to a whole different level. The knowledge I have about Environmental
Engineering is more than ever, I have a clearer thinking than before about
what I want to do in the future and how can I make it through there. In order
to achieve my goals, Dr. Li suggested me to make a long-term plan. She told
me to intern at an Engineering company will help me to gain lots
experiences, and that will help me with my critical thinking and
communication skills. She also said that practice is better than theories.
As mentioned before, the reason I decided to come to the USA is
because it has the most advanced environmental engineering course in the
world. So as to be an engineer, I need to keep chasing my dream and
practice my communication skills.

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Comparing to the research, the graph indicates that there are 85%
employers hold the same opinion as I do. This graph demonstrates the
majority people think "what are the very important skills." From the graph,
we can tell language skills and critical thinking skills play extremely
important role in my career. In order to be successful, I think having
knowledge is far from enough. You will also need a command of language
skills to communicate with your co-workers or your boss. Last but not least,
Dr.Li told me tolerance is necessary for daily working. Nobody is perfect, no
matter in working or living, forgiven is the first thing I have to learn in life.
Likewise, cooperation and communicating are two indispensable things
which required in the career, you have to learn how to communicate with
your collies and you will have to work with them. One mans trash is another
mans treasure, this tells us everyone might hold different opinions, therefore
for a good communication and having a consensus is extremely important for
this job which requires teamwork.
To sum up, I will keep chasing my dream, I will not stop until I get
there. There are lots of things I need to improve, and I believe once I build a
strong critical thinking skills and a good communication skills, I will do well in
my future career.

References:

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1. Youtube: How bad do you want it?

2. Dr.Li: Environmental engineering requires a very official language
usage. It is not like to be an artist or someone who works at a creating
career. To communicating with collies and bosses during the work, like
writing an email or a work report, you will be asked to use perfect
English.