Reflections are personal. Students reflect on their own life experiences and thoughts about the class theme from that week.
Here are some questions you might consider reflecting on for this assignment. As always, you are welcome to design your own reflection question.
What was your mental image of a scientist or engineer when you were younger? How do you imagine them living? Did you mostly imagine men or women?
If you identify as a woman, have you ever felt discouraged from studying science and technology? How were you discouraged (did someone say something? was it because you felt that there were few women who were studying with you?)
If you identify as a man: have you ever seen a (male) teacher or heard a group of male friends/colleagues suggest that women weren’t as good at science subjects? How did you respond when you heard that?
Tim Hunt, a Nobel Prize winner for medicine, made the following statement approximately 5 years ago at a scientific conference in Korea: “Let me tell you about my trouble with girls … three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.” He thinks that labs should all be same-sex in order to eliminate distractions. Hunt insists that his remarks were meant as a joke, but he was fired from his job as a professor at University College London and removed from all of the prestigious advisory boards he was a member of. He believed that he was treated unfairly (probably what we today would call ‘canceled’) because no one asked his side of the story. Do you think it was an appropriate response to fire this man for his comments? Why or why not? Try to back your answer up with an ethical theory we discussed in class.
*For more info about Hunt: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/13/tim-hunt-hung-out-to-dry-interview-mary-collins
- Have you ever taken the time to talk to a homeless person or offer them help? Tell me about your experience.
- How do you think that homeless people are blamedfor their living situation and poverty? Why is this the wrong attitude to have?
