Hi, I’m Chris Solokas. I am currently a freshman at Penn State and am living in University Park. I grew up in Northern New Jersey, about twenty minutes away from New York City. Being that close to the city opened up many opportunities such as going to several Broadway shows as well as ice skating in Rockefeller Center throughout the winter. I am a huge NY Jets fan, and am still recovering after they broke my heart by barley missing the playoffs this season. I am a communications major and plan to graduate with a degree in telecommunications so I can become a television producer, preferably somewhere in the sports field. I have never really thought about Geography in a scientific way, which is why I’m very interested to take this course. I know I am going to learn about many new and interesting things about the surface of the Earth that I had probably never thought of before.

There are many important issues that can be addressed when talking about geography. In my opinion, one of the most important issues to be discussed is how humans are affecting the Earth. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone makes a joke and says something like, “So my grandkids won’t see a polar bear, who cares?” There are so many people who think their own actions won’t affect the environment or geography of the planet at all and that mindset is completely wrong. Social science is what is needed in order for us to understand just how big of an impact we as humans have on the Earth, and that is something that we’ll study in this course. This is very important because everyone should understand what a huge impact their actions can have on the environment. Social science is just as important as environmental science.