SE 494

Fall 2019
Portfolio Gen Ed Narrative Assignment
Due date: Nov 3, 2019

Submission of portfolio Gen Ed Narrative via Canvas

1. Submit the (1) list of gen ed courses; (2) How/if they impacted engineering education
to be included in your portfolio. Please describe how your General Education Courses helped you to
develop as a professional engineer. Write a reflection that incorporates your thoughts on each of the
following questions.

GE1: What are your current short/long term goals? You may include your “ideal” career in engineering
or your preferred working environment.
GE2: What have you learned in your general education electives, which allow you to formulate and
evaluate engineering solutions in problem solving and innovation beyond the technical aspects in
problem solving? How do general education classes help you to think about an engineering
problem?
GE3: Relate what you have learned in general education classes to seeing beyond the engineering
solution in problem solving and innovation. What are some other dimensions to consider and what
impact do they have in an economic, global or societal context?

General Education Courses:

 HIST 100P: A.P World History
 ECON 101: Principles of Microeconomics
 MUSIC 105: Basic Musicianship

My current short term goals are to graduate next semester with a good GPA and to find a job in
backend application development. I’d like to work at a smaller company with a more flexible working
schedule. My long term goals are to get accepted into the HCI Graduate program at ISU starting next
fall and to complete an online Master’s in HCI while working full time. Eventually, I would like to settle
into either the field of Data Analytics or DevOps. Eventually, I’d like to be in the position of Senior
Application Developer, but I don’t really want to have a higher role than that.

In the general education electives that I have taken so far, I have learned a lot of things that apply
to engineering, but aren’t really discussed in our core classes. One of these things was economics –
learning how the economy works and the basics of supply and demand can be very useful when
creating a product in engineering. It gives you more of a business perspective on things, so as you’re
solving a problem, you think about the product’s marketability. I also took World History, which taught
me about different cultures around the world as well as political conflicts between countries. This is
helpful because it taught me to take other cultures into account when designing things like UI because
people from different cultures can think very differently. I also took Music Theory, which is very
helpful in teaching you to think creatively. Being able to be creative and think outside the box can
help when problem solving because sometimes the only way to solve the problem is to not go with
the obvious solution.

In general, my gen ed classes have helped me think from many perspectives that differ from my
own. This is really important to remember when seeing beyond the engineering solution because you
need to not only think about solving a problem, but how to market your problem and consider the
effects your product may have on the economy, and how to make it work well for people from several
different countries or cultures.