General Education Reflection

Max Minard

During my time at Iowa State University, I enrolled in several general education courses
to expand my knowledge past the technical aspects of the engineering curriculum. These
courses helped me expand my mindset beyond the standard engineering practices and
principles. Rather than approaching a solution from a problem-solving perspective, they allow
you to think of other variables that might have an impact on the final solution. Additionally,
these courses are a good source for group projects with non-STEM majors who approach
problems in unique and informative ways. Communicating with these different perspectives
helped me expand my own world view and problem-solving approaches.

I focused a lot of general education courses around management since I’m interested in
pursuing software management in the future. The first of my general education courses was
MGMT 370: Management of Organizations. This class was centered around the role of
managers within an organization, as the name suggests. Going into more detail, I learned what
methods managers can use to effectively communicate with their employees, how to handle
external obstacles and challenges, and ways to optimize their organizational structure to ensure
an increase in efficiency and effectiveness.

The next course I took was MGMT 472: Management of Diversity. This class goes
beyond the basic principles of management and dives deep into the cultural aspects of
managing a team. When you become a manager, it’s crucial that you take into consideration
these cultural differences and establish a sense of cultural unity. This course also helped inform
me on the social and societal issues related to cultural differences within the workplace and
how create diversity development programs. I learned that being mindful of diversity within the
workplace is an essential step to connecting and effectively communicating with those you
work with or manage. It helps break down cultural barriers and encourages a sense unity to
ensure a stronger, more connected team.

In conclusion, these general education courses have equipped me with non-technical

skills that I’ll be able to apply to future careers and engineering projects. They helped pave the
wave towards adapting to new and unfamiliar problem-solving approaches, utilizing unique
perspectives towards the final solution, and maintaining understanding how to pursue
management functions using basic principles and an awareness of the cultural diversity within
that environment.