Mathias Palmersheim

EGR 490 Capstone 1

Dr. Danial Neebel
11/10/2015
Connected Through Clashes
At Loras College students are tasked with taking courses from a variety of disciplines. These range
from generic classes such as public speaking and college writing to advanced general education courses
such as Power Ideas in Physical Science and Christian sexual morality. These general courses
combined with technical course create a well-rounded and well educated person. This is done through
teaching with a wide variety of concepts. A lot of the time these concepts get along well together such
as engineering ethics and Catholic ethics both being focusing on the good of the human person.

Sometimes these concepts and ideas from one class clash with another class. A prime example of this
was when I was taking Christian Sexual Morality. In this class I learned that in some instances that
Magisterium can be considered infallible. To me this seemed troubling that a group of imperfect beings
could be infallible. Especially when those beings are all males trained in a few disciplines. Even though
these men are under the influence of the Holy Trinity. I disagreed with this idea because it clashed
directly with things I had learned in United States history in high school as well as in various science
courses. These courses teach that humans even in groups are not infallible so mechanisms need to be in
place to compensate for that weather it is safety factors being in place to compensate for human error,
or the founding fathers allowing the constitution to be amended in order to compensate for changing
times. After thinking out my ideas and found a way to politely ask why this in a way that showed that I
disagreed with him. After I asked my question the class had we good discussion. Even though my
opinion didnt change I learned how other people think as well as learning how to communicate
disagreements with others.

What this clash taught me is that humans do not always need to agree, but we always have to find a
way to get along in order to understand each other. In class I openly questioned the idea of the
extraordinary Magisterium, and I did so in a polite manner. That is because I had learned from prior
experiences in classes that is the best and most efficient way to work through disagreements. One time
that exemplified this was freshmen year in MOI where I angrily disagreed with a professor on the
amount of defense spending in America. This discussion went nowhere in a hurry after me aggressively
trying to pull up facts in class she shot me down and we both had to move on. However, had I been
more calm and patient by asking were her facts are coming from, or asking her after class. I could have
learned were she was coming and were she was getting her evidence from. This could have led to both
of learning about the other's prospective and get closer to answering the question. So after
remembering this clash when disagreeing about this topic I decided to politely ask why this is before
saying something bold and rude about the Magisterium in a Catholic school. The result was I got a far
better understanding of when and how this can happen and even though I still did not agree with the
professor.

This helped me grow leaps and bounds as an engineer because instead of being a stubborn person about
technical things. I could learn a lot by hearing people out instead of rejecting their ideas. This helped
me to learn abstract concepts in Fluid dynamics as well as web programming. Keeping an open mind in
these classes allowed my learning to accelerate because I was willing to learn how something worked
before calling it stupid. However, in both cases I did not end up calling Dimensionless groups or PHP
stupid. I ended up thinking both an awesome and powerful tools that can help solve problems. Whether
it is processing data submitted to a website, or using dimensionless group in order to figure out how
things scale.

Along with assisting with learning keeping an open mind allowed me to make better design choices in
my senior capstone course. Even though at times I was initially dismissive of other's ideas I was able to
calm down long enough to hear them out and it ended up improve the quality of the project. Initially I
was skeptical of doing a project that involved that involved using multiple sources to generate energy.
However, once I listened to other people's ideas long enough I realized that using two or more sources
of alternative energy could help to cover the short falls of each individual source. This lead from a
project that will sometimes generate energy to a project that can consistently.

The final thing listening to others improved was my ability to learn skills on the job faster. Normally
when I go into a job I think I have all the answers. Which leads me to that think I can change
everything to make it better. However, when I started working at Dubuque Stamping this summer I
decided to shut up and listen before trying to change things. This made for a much less stressful first
day as well as one with filled with learning. I was able to pay better attention to the person training me
because instead of trying to find everything wrong I was able to focus on learning how to do my job.
After I learned what I was supposed to do I was improve the process of my job by making things that
fit in with my current work flow such as creating spreadsheet to log data and perform simple
calculations. This is opposed to me trying and usually failing to do things differently than everyone else
at my job. This change in my behavior also allowed for me to become friendly with my coworkers
much faster. This makes the work day go by faster not only because it is a more enjoyable work day.
This was experienced when I quickly experienced bonds being made with my coworkers through
casual jokes and asking simple questions about the task at hand. This was opposed to prior jobs where
the first week seemed to be an attempt of breaking a stubborn streak. This helped to reduce awkward
tensions that can build up in a workplace where people resent one and another. The final this did was
keep my mind more open to changes in the workplace. This allowed me to adjust to abnormalities such
as machines not working properly or requiring maintenance. Along with more permanent changes such

adding filing price updates to my job description and changing my schedule once the school year
started.