Fulfilled: Scientific Perspectives Requirement

What surprised me most about this class was how much it was able to relate to my major of Anthropology & Archaeology. My first experience of this was when my professors from this class and one of my anthropology classes mentioned the anthropocene (the period during which human activity has greatly influenced climate and environment). It was interesting to compare the definitions of the term from each of these disciplines, and go through the semester discovering their similarities. I also discovered connections between this course and my anthropology classes through my final paper (located below), which is about the effects of climate change on the Sami people. I first learned about the Sami people a few weeks into my Cultural Anthropology class. After learning more about how their livelihood and their culture were being threatened by effects of climate change, I knew this was an important topic I wanted to discuss in more detail.

Because I am more of a right-brained person, and I do not particularly see science as a strength of mine, I was pretty apprehensive about this class going in. But this course has helped me realize that I am not necessarily bad at science, rather I have held this notion for years and I am limiting myself. I did end the semester with a B+ in the class, which brought down the 4.0 I otherwise held this past year, but I put in a lot of time and effort for that B+ and am proud of not simply giving up and taking a pass/fail. Especially with the added pressure of COVID-19 and having to take exams for this class while transitioning to a new normal, I am proud to know that I have done my best.

The Effects of Climate Change on the Sami by Rachel Boch was created on May 1, 2020. In this assignment, I combined what I learned in this course with my prior knowledge of cultural anthropology I gained from my major and gained a more in-depth, inter-discipline understanding of the topic at hand.