FSE150 was the introductory course in GCSP, and I thought it gave me a very solid start to the program. We started the year off learning about the program requirements and the 4 main competencies. This was useful because it helped me think of some plan to graduate from the program even though I had just started it. I was pleased to learn that this course already covered half of the interdisciplinary section and will also give me honors credits. As for the future courses, I have signed up for EPICS in my spring semester which will help cover part of the service learning competency. For the talent competency, I will likely do it in my capstone project since that seems the easiest to find a mentor for.

For our group's future solution project we went with an immersive video game that teaches programming. While this may sound familiar, most current programming games are incredibly boring or have simplistic design. Our concept is to make an open-world game that is actually enjoyable for the player. As a result they will continue to come back to the game and improve their knowledge in programming. I think we did a great job working in a group, and we split the work up well. This got me interested in the gameifcation of education and how to make games a learning experience.

For my faculty meeting, I met with Professor Brian Nelson who focuses on educational games. He discussed a few of his projects with me like a meuseum app that encourages visitors to ask questions. He also helped make a classroom game that focuses on scientific inquiry and learning which ended up with kids attaining more knowledge than just the traditional curriculum. One thing I was surprised to learn was that Professor Nelson actually did not reccomend educational games for basic tasks like memorization and vocabulary. He says that games are better for more deeper understanding of things, rather than just trivial activities. This made be consider the value of purpose when building an educational game as it is important to be aware of how it will make a difference. The learning experience is more important than the game itself. Finally, I asked Professor Nelson about if he does mentorships for GCSP. He said in the past he used to do capstone projects with CS students but his grant has changed. However, in the future the door may open again for him to continue those.

During the course we had to pick a theme, and write a paper on it and 3 specific research applications going on in the field. I chose sustainability, more specifically energy production and keeping energy efficient. My paper covered the topics of solar, wind, and nitrogen and how to keep the planet sustainable by limiting resources in production of energy. While it was tedious during research and writing thousands of words, it was a valuable learning experience to practice writing a formal engineering paper which I will need to do later in college. It also made me learn about picking the right sources when conducting research. I then had to present one specific topic to the class so I chose agrovaltic solar panels which are semi-transparent and allow some light to pass through. This provides both energy absorbtion and plant growth and prevents agriculture loss due to the expansion of solar panels.

Along with student presentations, we also had guest lectures. My personal favorite was Professor Bruce Rittmann who discussed energy production. I was unaware that net-neutral carbon emissions isn't enough anymore and that we will need net-negative to actually to save the planet from getting worse. However, society has become obviously reliant on energy so we can't just produce less. Instead we have to look at alternative energy productions. The most obvious is solar which is getting cheaper for installations and could limit people's bills. Professor Rittmann also explained how nuclear energy is a very big debate and we will likely need to use it in order to limit our footprints despite the risks. It made me realize that pushing for cleaner energy is not simply enough-but rather there are even more debates on how we should use renewable resources.

My favorite activity we did was the energy production game. My group was geothermal energy which currently has very little production. However, when there were big global events going on and non-renewable energy had supply chain issues there was a lot more demand for our product. It's interesting how the market in energy production may appear stagnant, but it can change so fast all of a sudden, and the produces who are unaware of it cannot catch up leading to big openings for alternative and rare energy sources to make ground.

When I initially started the course the themes I was most interested in pursuing for my final GCSP theme was either security or sustainability. However, over the semester I have moved towards Joy of Living due to its breadth and how it has many applications. What convinced me was the inverview with Professor Nelson on the gameification of education. Joy of Living also works great with my major, since there are many computer based applications that can be used to improve people's lives.