In May of 2018 I was privileged to be able to participate in the Longwood at Yellowstone National Park program, traveling throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem for ten days. Because it served as the capstone to my GNED experience at Longwood, it doesn’t surprise me that it is this class and this class alone that stands out most to me in terms of achieving Longwood’s Goals for General Education. After looking over the goals again, it is not shocking that I can find moments of this class that represent each of the twelve goals.

• Be able to use critical thinking and analysis in all aspects of your life.
  • While all classes helped achieve this, this class especially forced me to put these skills to use in the real world.
• Be able to write and speak logically, clearly, precisely, and to acquire, organize, present, and document information and ideas.
  • Our Writing for Citizenship project, which consisted of four assignments, was undoubtedly how this goal was incorporated into the class.
• Understand our cultural heritage as revealed in the literature that shapes our thinking and that provides a record of human experience.
  • In this course, we focused greatly on public documents as literature, and I have now fallen in love with the plethora of public documents that surround me every day no matter where I am.
• Understand our cultural heritage as expressed in artistic achievements and role of the creative process in the life of the individual and society.
  • Our visits to numerous museums were particularly beneficial in recognizing the creative processes at play in the communities we visited.
• Understand how the past may be used as a model for understanding the present.
  • Many of the visitor centers we visited explained the geologic and, more recently, the human history of the area we were in and how what we saw was shaped by events in the past.
• Understand the forces shaping contemporary society as revealed in the social sciences.
  • I’ve been studying sociology since my freshmen year as my minor, but this was the first time I was able to apply those concepts in real time.
• Understand the diversity of other cultures and societies.
  • This was my first time in the Western United States outside of an hours’ drive to the Pacific or a bay, so every facet of the culture was new to me and helped me understand the diversity of our country.
• Have the ability to communicate and function in a globally interdependent world.
  • This trip reminded me that even within our own country we need to be sensitive to the place we are in when we make everyday choices.
• Understand mathematical thought and have the ability to conceptualize and apply mathematical logic to problem solving.
  • I never thought math would be necessary in such a trip, but when studying the elk, math, and particularly statistics, became extremely important making me thankful for my mathematical understandings as a tool for problem solving.
• Have the ability to apply the methods of science to the acquisition of knowledge, and have an appreciation of the major contributions of science to our cultural heritage and to the solution of contemporary problems.
  • Our stewardship issues required me to venture in to the science side of my liberal studies education, something that I love and wish happened more often.
• Understand issues dealing with physical and mental well-being through physical activity.
  • The hike to Specimen Ridge definitely tested my physical ability, and living in such close quarters with my classmates tested my mental well-being on multiple occasions.
• Have the ability to make informed, ethical choices and decisions and to weigh the consequences of those choices.
  • The continuum activity, and our shared lens of the ethical, reminded us that there is a wide array of choices and that we, individually, have to weigh the options to arrive at an answer.

 

This above, though a blog post, was one of the last assignments I turned in for the AMAZING LU@YNP trip I had the privilege of completing my last GNED goal on. It is often referred to as the GNED Capstone, and I could not agree with that statement more. At first I was hesitant about that, but after going on this trip and seeing all the ways my GNED experience is interconnected, this course truly served as a capstone and brought it all together in none other than our nation’s first National Park. I had the honor of getting to know many of our faculty either better or for the first time, and the conversations and experiences I was able to be a part of challenged me both intellectually, emotionally, and, at times, physically. Traveling with a member of Crow nation was particularly meaningful, as he brought a perspective that no one else in our group could of provided. Throughout all of this, the main lessons I learned was the importance of doing your research, always hearing others out, and that there’s always another side to every story.