As I said in the last post, I have been questioning my impacts a lot recently. I leave the country in just 44 hours and thankfully I am not scrambling to finish my work. Today is a relaxed last day at the office and tomorrow campus is closed for Colombian independence day (the perfect farewell for my final day). I wonder if I--or anyone--can ever know the intangible effects (both good and bad) that I had here. Of specific significance, I poured hours and hours into ecology and community development projects in multiple Colombian cities. This sounds great but I also wonder what I contributed outside of being just another body capable of doing work. What did I personally and uniquely contribute? The obvious answer is that my English skills were a huge contribution because one of the biggest facets of our Puerto Lopez project was English classes. I do hope that I, as a senior ecology major with past research experience, have contributed more than just my language abilities. I certainly learned an immeasurable amount about field ecology so perhaps that is the measure I should be preoccupied with. However, as I said in my last post, I do not think I can fully assess my impact until 44+ hours from now when my journey has officially come to a close.
1 Comment
Robin
7/21/2017 10:45:03 am
It sounds to me like you contributed a lot!
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Ben JohnsonI am a junior at Rice University majoring in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and minoring in Environmental Studies Archives
June 2017
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