JE #26 - Final Thoughts on Colloquium

My overall thoughts on the colloquium class are that I enjoyed it very much even though it has invoked stress, passion and rage in a way that no other class ever has. There was a lot of work involved in a very short amount of time due to the constraints of the Summer A semester which made the class overwhelming on occasion but for the most part, the work itself was not difficult. I liked that the class was about our opinions that required critical thought on the issues of sustainability facing our world today. I feel as though many people do not apply enough effort in this venture and so am very happy with the requirement of this class by the school.

One student made a comment that he did not think that the students of this class would get much out of it or would make changes in their lives based upon the fact that habit reform needs to be continuously preached in order for significant change to be made. I disagree with this statement as the information presented and the knowledge gained from the course was powerful in its enlightenment and I feel as though many students will affect some type of habit reform in their daily lives.

If anything, their eyes will be open to the amount of waste that can be seen in everyday life. An example of this would be my very recent experience at the Miami airport. There are stations set up everywhere to shrink wrap travelers' luggage in plastic purely in an effort to protect it. The amount of luggage to be seen was overwhelming and enraging. Just in my 3 hour stay I probably saw enough to easily fill a 55-yard dumpster with non-biodegradable waste and this was only in one terminal; exponentially this is insane. Instead of people taking responsibility for their actions and packing properly which would eliminate the need for this supposed protection, we chose the easier way out. As a result of societies laziness and the lack of reinforced education on sustainability, business endeavors such as this will continue to be wasteful and harmful to our futures. I fully intend to communicate with legislators upon my return to the states to make them aware of this blatant disregard for sustainable practices and hope to eliminate this business before it spreads, like a virus, to other airports across the country. Without having taken the colloquium class, I do not know if seeing this would have affected me so strongly to the point where I find it is my civic duty to take up this cause.

Another point to counteract the opinion of my fellow student is that I found myself so baffled by some of the topics covered in the course that I would leave the school and talk about them with anyone who was willing to listen. In many cases, friends and family were equally as offended as I was and have made changes in their lives whether it be recycling more, writing legislators, boycotting businesses or even so simple as shopping at farmer's markets. Every person who was in my group at the Miami airport are equally irritated as myself over the plastic situation and will also work towards this cause even though they did not take the colloquium class. There is no value that can be placed on this spread of knowledge. We cannot count on the government to solve all of our problems with regards to sustainability and this course made it painfully clear that it is up to society to make changes.