Darren Slotnick Alien Culture Paper Upon hearing about the Alien Culture paper that our ENGR

408 class had to write, I was immediately intrigued. The freedom given in the assignment was unusual, as there was essentially no boundaries or limit on what we could do to push ourselves out of our comfort zone, assuming that what we were doing was safe. In order to decide the way I was going to move out my own comfort zone, I thought about my own biases and things that I try to avoid at all costs. There was one major thing that came to mind when thinking about what I try to avoid: religion. Although I am not completely opposed to all forms of religion, I do have a dislike for religion in general. I am a very secular person, as I like to believe in science and evidence over blind faith in a religion. Although I dont mind moderately religious people and groups, I strongly dislike when religion conflicts with and ignores scientific developments. For example, despite the undeniable fact that evolution has occurred throughout the history of the Earth, there are countless people who deny this on the basis of religion. Being an engineer, religions general resistance to scientific advancements and progress causes me to have a negative bias towards religion in general. My childhood has also had a significant effect on my distaste for religious behaviors. Unlike most kids growing up, I never went to a church, synagogue, or temple. My mother was Catholic, and my father was Jewish. Neither my mother nor my father practiced their religion while I was growing up, and the most significant religious aspect of my life was our annual celebration of Christmas and Hanukkah. Even then, these holidays were more about being with family and being thankful than what they represented religiously. As a result, I have never spent any time learning about any religion, I have never been to Church for something other than a piano recital, wedding, or a funeral, and I have never had any desire to do so. In order to challenge my biases and to open my mind, I decided to attend a Bible study at Penn State. Although this may seem quite easy to someone more familiar with religion, it was quite intimidating for someone who had never opened the front cover of a Bible. In the minutes leading up to my departure for the Bible study, I started to get quite uncomfortable and anxious. I was truly out of my comfort zone before I had even left my dorm building. Walking into the Bible study alone was a major challenge in of itself. Having finally found the door to the building, it was intimidating to venture inside alone, without a familiar friend walking beside you or a familiar face to look for inside. I walked up the stairs and found a group of rowdy college students playing foosball, while several other groups were scattered about the room talking. Not knowing what else to do, I walked to and sat down in a chair a few rows back from the front. Within a few minutes, three people had introduced themselves to me, including the pastor. Their friendliness, while not surprising, was quite comforting as it made me feel less alone in the room full of strangers. By the time everyone had taken their seats and the Bible study began, I had introduced myself to and talked to at least five other people nearby. My fears had so far been proven unfounded!

Upon the start of the Bible study, a group of students playing various instruments took the small stage in the front of the room and started playing Christian music. As everyone began to sing along, I struggled to keep up, unfamiliar with the words and the tune. I felt self-conscious, not knowing whether or not to try to sing or to just stay quiet. I ended up deciding to sing along to the best of my ability because this project was supposed to move me out of my comfort zone as much as possible. However, I couldnt help but to think that I didnt agree with the words being sang, and that I was being hypocritical. Singing that I would be completely open, honest and faithful with Jesus, while not subscribing to the Christian belief, felt uncomfortable and awkward. After several songs, the pastor led the group in a prayer, and then directed everyone to sit down. Not being a Christian myself, I was unsure of whether or not to close my eyes, or to say Amen at the end of the prayer. I felt that if I did, I would be lying to myself and pretending to be something that Im not. However, the pastors words were well intentioned and could be applied beyond religion, something that I did appreciate. Praying for the students to do well in their search for an internship and a job, to excel on their exams, and to have a safe week is something that everyone can relate to. After several announcements of upcoming events in the Christian community, we broke into six groups of approximately eight people each. Each of these groups was to have a discussion on the designated section of the bible for that night, and we were provided with a sheet of paper with eight different questions to help stimulate discussion. I joined a group at the front of the room with a few of the people I had met earlier, and I was handed a Bible. It was at this point that the most uncomfortable moment of the night occurred. We were instructed to flip to a particular passage in the Matthew section of the Bible. Having never opened or looked inside a Bible before, I assumed that the sections would be labeled in alphabetical order. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and I was left scrambling to find the section while everyone else waited. The girl next to me asked if I knew how to use the Bible, and after stalling for a moment, I replied that I didnt. She showed me where Matthew was located, and how to find the correct passages on the lines. I felt like everyone discovered that I was a fraud, somebody who truly knew nothing about the Christian belief. How could I be going to a Bible study having never opened a Bible? Looking back on the moment now, I dont think that any of my group members questioned my intentions or my intelligence after having to be shown how to use the Bible. I think it is more likely that they were happy that someone with no religious experience was willing to learn about the religion that they held so highly in their lives. Still, the moment was incredibly awkward at the time, and it took several minutes before I recovered enough to participate in the actual discussion. At the beginning of the discussion, a question was asked regarding how a particular passage differed from the Old Testament, and the significance of that difference. I immediately started to worry that I would not be able to participate whatsoever in the conversation, as I had no clue what the passage even meant, let alone how it differed from the Old Testament. Thankfully, the questions began to get

more applicable to life in general, and I did not need any prior religious knowledge to relate to the passages being discussed. In fact, several of the passages discussed were quite interesting. One passage talked about how someone should cut off his hand if his hand sinned, as it is better to lose a limb than to have ones soul cast into hell. Another passage claimed that marrying a divorced woman was just as bad as adultery with a married one. I asked a few questions when these topics were discussed, asking if we were truly supposed to cut off our hand or gouge out our eye if we had a thought of lust towards a woman. After discussion, our group came to the conclusion that Jesus did not actually advocate the maiming of ones own body, but advocated the suppression of these thoughts as much as possible. Being completely new to religion, I felt that I brought a unique perspective to the group discussion. I approached each passage having never seen nor read it before, and thus my questions often reflected a basic implication of the passage that had been previously overlooked. In this way, I was able to contribute to our groups deliberation. Finally, after we wrapped up our conversation, the pastor led the groups in a final prayer similar to the first one, and the study was officially over, although most of the attendees stayed longer to socialize. I stayed around for another thirty minutes and talked to other students before I said goodbye to everyone I had met. As I started to leave, the pastor stopped me for several minutes and talked to me about my major, my life at college, and how I found out about the meeting. He complimented the courage it took for me to walk into a room full of strangers without a friend, and encouraged me to come back the following week. I seriously considered his offer, if only to talk to the new friends I had made. The insight that I have achieved from this assignment has been invaluable. Attending a Bible study has opened my eyes to and widened my point of view of religion. I learned that real life lessons could be taken from religious discussions, meaning that even an Atheist can benefit from learning about religion and its values. I also learned that it is unwise to have a preconceived bias about any groups mission or belief without learning more about the group and understanding what they are all about. I had a preconceived notion that the Bible study would be full of religious terminology and concepts that I would not understand nor care about. However, after attending the Bible study, I now know that the study was much more than that, it was about the general choices we make in our life and the morals that we hold highly. Finally, I learned that by putting oneself in an uncomfortable situation, you can grow more as a person in an hour than you can in a month living in a comfortable routine. By challenging your biases and forcing yourself to open your mind, it is possible to truly widen your understanding of the world around you, to become a more empathic and less ignorant person, and even to make some friends. This experience will definitely affect my future leadership style. As a leader, it is vital to approach any leadership role in a project or workplace with an open mind. I believe that leaders who dont have an open mind to all ideas, or enter any project with a preconceived bias, are perceived as bossy, egotistical, and ignorant. Although being open to religion likely would not play a role in any leadership experience that

I have, I can use the same mindset to keep an open mind towards other aspects of a job, such as different or contradicting ideas in a project or cultural differences when developing ideas or solutions. In this way, I will not only benefit from a positive perception of my leadership style by not discounting any ideas or differences that people have, but I will also benefit by maximizing my teams ability to find a solution to a problem by exploring and understanding differences in thoughts and ideas among a team. My increased comfort level with being in an unknown or naturally awkward situation will also have an effect on my future leadership style. I realize it is inevitable that a leader will be put in situations that are out of his or her comfort zone. Being able to handle these situations calmly and effectively is an important quality for a leader to have. I believe that being repeatedly pushed out of ones comfort zone will result in less and less stress and nervousness each time it happens. By willingly continuing to move out of my own comfort zone, I can prepare for the inevitable uncomfortable situations that will occur throughout my career. This project was the first step in being able to handle these situations with grace, and will greatly benefit my leadership capability. I plan on continuing to push myself out of my comfort zone in the future. I hope that by doing so, I can continue to challenge other biases that I hold. Although I believe that I am a relatively unbiased person in general, I will take advantage of any situation that I can find where I realize that I do have a bias, however slight it may be. I recognize the importance of leaving my comfort zone to grow as a leader and as a person, and I will strive to continue doing so throughout my life at Penn State and beyond.