Multicultural

Course 1: GPH 210 Society and Environment Spring 2026

To fulfill the first half of my multicultural competency, I enrolled in GPH210: Society and Environment. Throughout this course we learned about different academic perspectives on environmental management, differing cultures surrounding the environment, the commercializaiton of nature, and how environmentalism can be applied to gender and race. Furthermore, we learned about nine different case studies and how they applied to different ideas of environment and society. We were primarily tasked with reading and replying to discussion posts on how these case studies apply to ideas in the instructional module. Our final project was an environmental service project of our choice, to which I decided not to use AI services for one week.

There is a strong connection between the society and environment and the concept of sustainability, which is my GCSP theme. The overarching subjects of the course were to examine how sustainable past and current methods of environmental resource management are for society. Furthermore, we also discussed the consequences of historical unsustainable environmental resource management on our society. For example, two of our case studies were wolves and tuna, both objects of concern when it comes to unsustainable hunting and their importance within their ecosystem.

GPH210 was greatly valuable to my GCSP work. This course built upon the previous ideas of sustainability that we learned in FSE150, which involved examining ways that engineering could be used to make environmental resource management more sustainable. Furthermore, GPH210 was also very valuable to my academic and professional development. I believe that my environmental service of avoiding AI services helped me in my professional and academic career goals by strengthening my critical technical thinking skills. As a result, I did not have to rely too heavily on the internet or technology to learn my coursework and became independent when I was learning concepts.

Course 2: STS 330 Information Technology and AI

To fulfill the second half of my multicultural competency, I enrolled in STS330: Information Technology and AI. Throughout this course we learned about several different perspectives and theories about technology's effects on society. Notable concepts that were discussed within the course include technological determinism, how technology and policy is shaped to prioritize profitability rather than true innovation, and how AI's impact fits within the overall pattern of previous technological innovations such as electricity and the internet. Other points of discussion were data privacy, how marginalized communities navigate technological advances, and policy decisions for technological education and regulation. We were primarily tasked with writing and engaging with weekly discussion posts, as well as writing a synthesis essay that described our experiences and thoughts on AI.

There is a strong connection between the Information Technology and AI and the concept of sustainability, which is my GCSP theme. The overarching subjects of the course were to examine how sustainable past and current methods of technological innovation and its resulting policy decisions are for society. Furthermore, we also discussed the consequences of unsustainable technoloigcal practices on our society, whether it be data centers' impact on its surroundings or privacy issues such as the Cambridge Analytica case.

STS330 was greatly valuable to my GCSP work. This course built upon the previous ideas that we learned about and discussed in FSE150, in which we had a class dedicated to hosting a debate on whether AI was either more beneficial or harmful to society. Furthermore, STS330 was also very valuable to my academic and professional development. I believe that since the computer science and software engineering industry is heavily dominated by AI, having a policy and socioeconomic perspective of AI's impacts will strengthen my usage of AI within the workplace and my industry career.

Initial Reflection STS 330

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