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As an engineering student, I can confidently say that most engineers do not have enough exposure to the humanities. In industry they are notoriously lacking in their communication skills regardless of their intelligence. I can also confidently say that my honors participation has helped expose me to more art, history, and literature.
For the past two semesters, I have made a point to visit Rowan University's Art Gallery to fulfill my arts and culture requirement. I have always had a strong appreciation for the arts, whether it be painting, photography, sculpture, or music. In the past, I have also attended on-campus photography displays as part of my arts and culture requirement, and I enjoyed it so much that I considered purchasing one. While it would have been worth buying, it would have been unpractical due to how little wall space I had in my room at the time.
As one of my think events, I tuned into Dr. Mikkel Dack's presentation about his newly released book on the denazification of Germany following World War II. Throughout my educational past, I had always had an interest in World War II, more so than a lot of other topics. I also took German classes from seventh grade until completing high school. I really enjoyed his presentation. Dr. Dack is a very effective communicator who is very passionate about his research. His talk focused on how, following the war, allied forces employed academia to figure out how to denazify Germany. This proved to be a difficult task due to the incredible amounts of brainwashing and propaganda that German citizens faced under Hitler.
I always go to the Honors Student Semiformal and the Priority Registration Breakfast, as I think part of being an honors student is participating in the honors community. At these two events in particular, it gives me a chance to interact with honors students of all disciplines and from any one of the undergraduate classes. At least half of being a good citizen scholar is being a good citizen. It should go without saying that most honors students are high academic achievers, but being good at academics is often separate from being a good citizen. Being able to interact with the honors community allows interdisciplinary relationships to thrive and grow. Additionally, share events such as Fresh for All, allow honors students to give back to the wider community. This allows us to not only support ourselves, but others as well.
Most of these events probably only get the turnout that they do because we are required to attend them. That's not a bad thing. As much as I enjoy attending events like Dr. Dack's presentation, I would not have even known about it if I wasn't on the Honors Events calendar. I just recently subscribed to the honors calendar in the past month or so, and it has been an invaluable tool. Hopefully next semester, I will attend more seminars like that of Dr. Dack's.
Think events and arts and culture events give engineers like me a different, yet much needed, perspective on the world. It is events like these that separates students and scholars. Throwing in thrive events and share events separates scholars from citizen scholars. As much as honors events can seem like a requirement and times a bit of a burden, I genuinely believe that the system is designed in such a way that, if we put in the effort, we can actually become better students and better people.