Getting to Know Me- Humna Khan

Hi, my name is Humna and I am a senior at Penn State University Park. I was born in Pakistan and lived there for eight years; afterwards, I moved to America in 2003 with my family to Easton, Pennsylvania. I have lived there ever since, excluding my time in State College. I intend to graduate this semester as an Accounting major and Economics minor, then pursue my CPA license. I will be working as an audit associate at Grant Thornton in Philadelphia starting in the fall. As a business graduate, I have become very interested in the environment thanks to classes such as: Business Ethics and two Energy classes. I am also concurrently taking Geog010 at the time. Originally, I took the energy classes to fulfill my science credits (and I hate biology, chemistry, and so on), but over time, I have come to truly value the classes. There is such a big connection between humans and the environment, so I hope to gain more knowledge and become aware of our surroundings and our actions through this class.

As I mentioned, I have taken a few environment classes now, and common topics were limit of natural resources, climate change, and so on. As the lesson suggested, a way to mitigate these problems may be governance. The issue and solution that I am most interested in is the business world’s relation to the use of natural resources. Businesses have factories, operations, and certain products that use an excessive amount of these non-renewable resources (admittedly, some of them may be renewable in the long-term), including oil, water, coal, and so on. This affects many people around the world, whether it is because some people have little to no access to clean water while others use it carelessly or because some of these resources output pollution and are a cause of climate change. Although businesses are partially responsible for these incidents, they are also capable of solving these issues. Businesses can improve their processes to become environmentally friendly, or use their profits to conduct research to help with sustainability. The lesson was accurate that ethics is a big part of this. As business ethics continues to grow in importance, my hope is to help the environment through the business world. As Ernst and Young’s website says, “When business works better, the world works better.”

2 thoughts on “Getting to Know Me- Humna Khan

  1. Hi Humna,

    That’s really cool that your from Pakistan originally. What part of Pakistan are your from? I would really like to visit K2 someday, it’s on my bucket list. I found it interesting in regards to your comments on governance. I worked in the coal industry for a year. I was always fond of it, but it was one of the few sources of jobs in Southern Illinois at the time. Governance essentially shut down our operation and I was forced to move to Texas in order for my wife to find better work. These concepts are interesting and look forward to discussing them with you and the class.

    http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/01/20/getting-to-know-jason-hirons/

  2. Hi Humna, my name is Sabrina and I am a sophomore at University Park. Take a look at my page! http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/20/getting-to-know-you-sabrina-hecht/
    I find it fitting that the issue that you focused on was the business world’s relation to the use of natural resources considering that you are a business graduate. I agree that a part of environmental conflicts come from businesses and that since they are so large they can have a pretty dramatic effect on the climate. Although each individual that makes an environmentally unfriendly decision makes a difference, the difference a business can make is incredible. Requiring more business’s to be environmentally friendly or putting money towards research on how to solve some of these factory problems would become extremely efficient and helpful towards the environment.

Leave a Reply