Zaria Ferguson ’26 of Jamaica was a Biomedical and Electrical Engineering concentrator, and is now pursuing a career in healthcare technology. Her reflection on GENED 1071: African Spirituality and the Challenges of Modern Times allowed her to explore a variety of cultures and traditions within religion and spirituality, and provided her with a deeper understanding of self. “I really appreciated this course because it helped me form three main avenues of connection: connection with myself and my identity, connections with those around me, and connections with the world,” she said.

Virgil Guo ’28 of Newton, Kansas is a Statistics and Molecular and Cellular Biology double concentrator who is interested in pursuing statistics to aid underserved populations. His submission about GENED 1158: Water and the Environment allowed him to analyze the complexities within environmental challenges, and translate those findings to systematic instabilities, processes, and success in other institutions. “The course began with a simple framework: too much, too little, or something in between,” he shared. “By the end, I understood that the most consequential questions live in that uncertain middle space, where systems appear stable but remain shaped by competing pressures, where every choice to stabilize one thing shifts the weight somewhere else.”

Melany Hirsh ’27 of Massachusetts is a Neuroscience concentrator who plans to pursue medicine. Her experience taking GENED 1131: Loss challenged her to face the inevitability of mortality, find solace in its unpredictability, and approach grief with empathy. “Our communal loss shapes us, and it is okay to probe that vulnerability,” she reflected. “There is no handbook for loss because grief is individual. But individual does not mean alone.”

Behruz Mahmudov ’26 of Uzbekistan was a Chemistry and Human Developmental & Regenerative Biology double concentrator with a secondary in Global Health & Health Policy. He is now a Public Health Specialist for the New York State Department of Health. GENED 1093: Who Lives, Who Dies: Reimagining Global Health redefined what he thought he knew about holistic healthcare and motivated him to look at the topic from a multifaceted approach. “I came into GENED 1093 believing that global health was mainly about learning how to solve problems at scale. I left understanding that the harder task is learning how to see them whole. And sometimes the beginning of that sight is as simple, and as difficult, as carrying what someone else should never have had to carry alone,” he said. 

Chris Ruaño ’26 of Milford, Connecticut was an Economics and Computer Science double concentrator, currently interested in the intersection of economics and machine learning. GENED 1056: Human Nature examined human intelligence, instinct, and evolutionary learning, allowing him to make exciting correlations between biology and economics. “The Gen Ed requirement did what good requirements do—it overrode my preferences for my own benefit, a form of paternalism that even this economics student can endorse,” he said.