Grand Challenge Scholars Program
The Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) encourages budding engineers like me to have a focus that is larger than just themselves and their cool technology. Many of my friends who are engineering students at other institutions have found it easy to fall into the "gadget" culture that is so prominent in today's society. I, instead, have approached engineering through the lens of Joy of Living, a Grand Challenge theme, and have incorporated five curricular components - large projects, interdisciplinarity, service learning, entrepreneurship, and global awareness - into my studies.
Students at Olin complete the requirements for GCSP just as a result of the curriculum. We are encouraged to reflect on our experiences and create a GCSP portfolio to tie together and document our studies, especially as they relate to the five components. I chose to participate in this program because believe that reflection at the end of an experience is incredibly important in remembering the lessons you learned during that experience and figuring out what the next steps are. In addition, I wanted to show how engineering is more than just building things, but is also figuring out what the right thing to build is. To be able to truly tackle the Grand Challenges of the next generation, we first need to reinterpret what engineering means to us as a society.
I have chosen to focus my portfolio on the Grand Challenge theme of Joy of Living. My interpretation of the NAE intent behind the Joy of Living theme is to enhance the human race and grant equal opportunities to everyone. To me, Joy of Living as it relates to engineering is broader than this - it is in the connection between engineering and other disciplines, in the design and fabrication of a product for a specific user, and in using engineering to create joy.
Students at Olin complete the requirements for GCSP just as a result of the curriculum. We are encouraged to reflect on our experiences and create a GCSP portfolio to tie together and document our studies, especially as they relate to the five components. I chose to participate in this program because believe that reflection at the end of an experience is incredibly important in remembering the lessons you learned during that experience and figuring out what the next steps are. In addition, I wanted to show how engineering is more than just building things, but is also figuring out what the right thing to build is. To be able to truly tackle the Grand Challenges of the next generation, we first need to reinterpret what engineering means to us as a society.
I have chosen to focus my portfolio on the Grand Challenge theme of Joy of Living. My interpretation of the NAE intent behind the Joy of Living theme is to enhance the human race and grant equal opportunities to everyone. To me, Joy of Living as it relates to engineering is broader than this - it is in the connection between engineering and other disciplines, in the design and fabrication of a product for a specific user, and in using engineering to create joy.
Large Project
Joy of Living has been a constant theme throughout my projects at Olin – by designing for people and building the products that people actually need, I have learned several lessons, both about myself as a person and about how to be a better engineer. I chose to be an engineer originally because I was good at math and science (which I was told were the subjects you needed depth in to be a good engineer) and because it would get me a job after graduation in an economy where jobs were fairly hard to come by. I had a very stereotypical picture of an engineer in my head - one who works in a machine shop all day prototyping or one who sits in front of a computer all day coding. While I didn't find this type of job incredibly inspiring I knew it would be a good stepping stone for me in the future, and I had always been taught to take the route that would open the most doors. My personal definition of "engineer" has since changed to be one who identifies a problem and finds a solution, which is a role that I identify much more with.
This change in definition has become all the more obvious to me during my capstone engineering project, working with Care.com and a team of other Olin students on the topic of helping senior citizens to age in place longer and with a higher quality of life. Working with Care.com has helped me to synthesize many of my other experiences and skills. This project also included service learning, when I volunteered at North Hill, a local assisted living facility, and a global perspective, when I looked into how other cultures treat their elders. While I cannot give the full details of the project since the product has not yet been released to the public, I will share as much context as I can and the skills that I take away from it.
My capstone engineering project served as a concrete way for me to delve deeper into the skills I had been learning throughout my time at Olin, in addition to the curricular components involved in GCSP. At the beginning of the capstone I was worried that I wouldn't be able to contribute much to the project since I didn't have the technical expertise that a lot of my classmates do. It has been very satisfying and calming to see the true need for my skills in interviewing users, managing an interdisciplinary project, and balancing different project needs such as technical feasibility and market viability. I would not have had the depth in (nor seen the importance of) these softer skills without this year-long project. Because of it (and a few other product management experiences at Olin), I have chosen to take a job at Microsoft as a Program Manager since I see it as the way to balance technical knowledge, user needs, and my interpersonal skills.
A second larger project that helped me to synthesize my learning was working to empower youth in Clarksdale, Mississippi as part of a course called Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE). ADE is a combined Olin-Babson course with the goal of enabling students to become leaders who can address the well-being of people living in poverty through design and entrepreneurship. This course can be taken for two consecutive semesters as an alternative capstone project, i.e. Olin SCOPE. I chose to take it for one semester and then was a teaching assistant for the next two semesters. Since ADE is an alternative capstone, it also has a far-reaching impact and goal statement, especially since projects continue beyond one student team, generally three years or more.
While a part of the ADE program, I learned how different cultures even within the United States can be – races are still much separated in Clarksdale and it’s almost as if you stepped back into the 1950s – and how to relate to these different cultures and understand what they need. For instance, there is a very physical boundary between races in Clarksdale; there is a river that runs through the middle of the city. The white people live on one side of this river and the black people on the other, and the two communities remain very separate and distinct. This project also included a heavy volunteerism component since my team was the first ADE team to go to Clarksdale and we needed to build trust in the community so that everybody felt comfortable talking to us about community issues. Finally, my team itself taught me a lot since I had never worked closely with Babson business students and had a lot to learn about how to communicate with them and about entrepreneurship in general - even though we both spoke the same language, the way that the Olin students and Babson students on the team interpreted assignments and conversations were very different.
I think it was the diversity both on my ADE team and in Clarksdale, MS that has stuck with me the most as I'm leaving Olin. First, in terms of diversity within the team itself, I had not realized how differently engineers (and Olin engineers in particular) communicate than how others communicate (especially business students). For instance, I had never considered myself a terribly blunt person but I was significantly more forthright than our business students who were far more used to convincing people. I also hadn't realized the sheer number of acronyms that exist in day-to-day Olinspeak, which our Babson teammates quickly made us aware of. In terms of the diversity in Clarksdale, MS, I must confess that I was surprised at finding two separate communities within one city. I had expected that in speaking with community leaders we would get an idea of how the community feels. It wasn't until late in the semester that we realized we had been speaking to leaders within the white community and that they had no concept of the needs in the black community. We then tried hard to rectify this on our last trip (out of three) to Clarksdale, and emphasized it to the team that came in the semester after us so that they would not make the same mistake (since it was more challenging than we expected to have both communities represented in our work).
This change in definition has become all the more obvious to me during my capstone engineering project, working with Care.com and a team of other Olin students on the topic of helping senior citizens to age in place longer and with a higher quality of life. Working with Care.com has helped me to synthesize many of my other experiences and skills. This project also included service learning, when I volunteered at North Hill, a local assisted living facility, and a global perspective, when I looked into how other cultures treat their elders. While I cannot give the full details of the project since the product has not yet been released to the public, I will share as much context as I can and the skills that I take away from it.
My capstone engineering project served as a concrete way for me to delve deeper into the skills I had been learning throughout my time at Olin, in addition to the curricular components involved in GCSP. At the beginning of the capstone I was worried that I wouldn't be able to contribute much to the project since I didn't have the technical expertise that a lot of my classmates do. It has been very satisfying and calming to see the true need for my skills in interviewing users, managing an interdisciplinary project, and balancing different project needs such as technical feasibility and market viability. I would not have had the depth in (nor seen the importance of) these softer skills without this year-long project. Because of it (and a few other product management experiences at Olin), I have chosen to take a job at Microsoft as a Program Manager since I see it as the way to balance technical knowledge, user needs, and my interpersonal skills.
A second larger project that helped me to synthesize my learning was working to empower youth in Clarksdale, Mississippi as part of a course called Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE). ADE is a combined Olin-Babson course with the goal of enabling students to become leaders who can address the well-being of people living in poverty through design and entrepreneurship. This course can be taken for two consecutive semesters as an alternative capstone project, i.e. Olin SCOPE. I chose to take it for one semester and then was a teaching assistant for the next two semesters. Since ADE is an alternative capstone, it also has a far-reaching impact and goal statement, especially since projects continue beyond one student team, generally three years or more.
While a part of the ADE program, I learned how different cultures even within the United States can be – races are still much separated in Clarksdale and it’s almost as if you stepped back into the 1950s – and how to relate to these different cultures and understand what they need. For instance, there is a very physical boundary between races in Clarksdale; there is a river that runs through the middle of the city. The white people live on one side of this river and the black people on the other, and the two communities remain very separate and distinct. This project also included a heavy volunteerism component since my team was the first ADE team to go to Clarksdale and we needed to build trust in the community so that everybody felt comfortable talking to us about community issues. Finally, my team itself taught me a lot since I had never worked closely with Babson business students and had a lot to learn about how to communicate with them and about entrepreneurship in general - even though we both spoke the same language, the way that the Olin students and Babson students on the team interpreted assignments and conversations were very different.
I think it was the diversity both on my ADE team and in Clarksdale, MS that has stuck with me the most as I'm leaving Olin. First, in terms of diversity within the team itself, I had not realized how differently engineers (and Olin engineers in particular) communicate than how others communicate (especially business students). For instance, I had never considered myself a terribly blunt person but I was significantly more forthright than our business students who were far more used to convincing people. I also hadn't realized the sheer number of acronyms that exist in day-to-day Olinspeak, which our Babson teammates quickly made us aware of. In terms of the diversity in Clarksdale, MS, I must confess that I was surprised at finding two separate communities within one city. I had expected that in speaking with community leaders we would get an idea of how the community feels. It wasn't until late in the semester that we realized we had been speaking to leaders within the white community and that they had no concept of the needs in the black community. We then tried hard to rectify this on our last trip (out of three) to Clarksdale, and emphasized it to the team that came in the semester after us so that they would not make the same mistake (since it was more challenging than we expected to have both communities represented in our work).
Interdisciplinarity
My entire experience at Olin has been interdisciplinary, both within the different fields of engineering and between engineering and other fields. Olin’s unique curriculum is built to support interdisciplinarity from the moment a student walks in the door; in fact, one of the courses in the first semester called Modeling and Simulation of the Physical World combines mathematics, physics, and computer science with presentation and design skills to teach students about modeling and simulation. Four projects in my four years at Olin stand out to me as being particularly interdisciplinary – those that bridged the gap between engineering and humanities and merged skills from both to create a final project.
The course that helped me to find my passion in engineering for people was a combined engineering design and anthropology course called Engineering for Humanity. In the first-year course, students received distribution credit in both disciplines and the course itself was co-taught by two faculty members from the two fields. A team of students partnered with an elderly volunteer from the local community to explore the issues associated with aging and ultimately design and build a product to help their elderly partner remain in their own home for longer. I worked with a lovely older woman from Wellesley, MA who invited me and my team into her home, baked us cookies, and shared her life experiences with us as we built a modified grabber to pick paper up off of the floor and a modified cane to help her get out of bed in the morning.
This course, which I took in my second semester at Olin, was ultimately what kept me from leaving Olin and switching majors. Before it, I didn't see the point of engineering - the course material was challenging and interesting but I didn't see how it related to the world around me or what I could add, which is really what drives me. Because the course has interdisciplinarity and human need at its core, the meaning and purpose of it was clear from the outset. I knew why I went to class in the morning and why I needed to deliver a complete final project at the end; it was because this was no longer for me or my learning but for Diana. This course formed the basis of my major in Human-Centered Design and I continued to seek out interdisciplinary courses with real-world consequences throughout the rest of my time at Olin.
The surprising part for me was how high of stakes I put on this project. I didn't give myself the option to fail or to not deliver a product. That would let down Diana, who needed the products I made to remain independent. By the end of the semester, I had also developed a deep personal connection with Diana - she was like a grandmother to me - and it was unthinkable that I would send her away empty-handed. There have been few other times at Olin where I have felt this much of a personal need to complete a project, though designing with a single user in mind is a lesson that I will always hold onto.
The course that helped me to find my passion in engineering for people was a combined engineering design and anthropology course called Engineering for Humanity. In the first-year course, students received distribution credit in both disciplines and the course itself was co-taught by two faculty members from the two fields. A team of students partnered with an elderly volunteer from the local community to explore the issues associated with aging and ultimately design and build a product to help their elderly partner remain in their own home for longer. I worked with a lovely older woman from Wellesley, MA who invited me and my team into her home, baked us cookies, and shared her life experiences with us as we built a modified grabber to pick paper up off of the floor and a modified cane to help her get out of bed in the morning.
This course, which I took in my second semester at Olin, was ultimately what kept me from leaving Olin and switching majors. Before it, I didn't see the point of engineering - the course material was challenging and interesting but I didn't see how it related to the world around me or what I could add, which is really what drives me. Because the course has interdisciplinarity and human need at its core, the meaning and purpose of it was clear from the outset. I knew why I went to class in the morning and why I needed to deliver a complete final project at the end; it was because this was no longer for me or my learning but for Diana. This course formed the basis of my major in Human-Centered Design and I continued to seek out interdisciplinary courses with real-world consequences throughout the rest of my time at Olin.
The surprising part for me was how high of stakes I put on this project. I didn't give myself the option to fail or to not deliver a product. That would let down Diana, who needed the products I made to remain independent. By the end of the semester, I had also developed a deep personal connection with Diana - she was like a grandmother to me - and it was unthinkable that I would send her away empty-handed. There have been few other times at Olin where I have felt this much of a personal need to complete a project, though designing with a single user in mind is a lesson that I will always hold onto.
Service Learning
Because my college education has been centered around designing for people, it has also included several opportunities to engage in service learning. I find that one of the easiest ways to learn more about a group of people is to volunteer your time to help them make their lives better. This has especially been the case with my experiences designing for senior citizens during college.
Engineering for Humanity was my first service learning experience – volunteering my skills as an engineer specifically to make one woman’s life better was an incredibly rewarding experience since I could directly see how my technical skills could be used for another’s benefit. I have always volunteered my time to help others; it was a part of the values instilled in me by my family. It was a new experience, however, to use my technical skills in this manner, to address the very real and pressing problems of getting out of bed in the morning and picking up bills off of the floor.
My research continued this theme of service learning. During the summer after my sophomore year I spent a week volunteering in a memory unit in a local assisted living facility. My goal was to learn more about how aides help people with memory issues so that I could design technology that would ease their burden. This hit especially close to home for me since my own grandmother had Alzheimer’s and passed away while I was in high school. My grandfather had been covering for her (and not letting the rest of the family see how bad her memory had gotten) for a few years before he passed away in 2005. When he passed away in order for her to stay safe, she needed someone to be with her 24-7. For instance, she would begin to cook a meal, turn on the stovetop, and then leave it on and forget that she was cooking (or would just forget to eat altogether). The family tried to do this in-home care for several months, but ultimately didn't have the resources either physically or emotionally to cope with her decline mentally.
This impacted me in several different ways. First, I learned how to interact with people with memory problems, which is a skill (for lack of a better word) that I have since used on multiple occasions to the surprise of many professional caregivers and aides. It also sparked a need in me to learn more about people who have Alzheimer’s and their caregivers so that I could design for families in a similar situation that my own was in, since there wasn’t much support for my family. Finally, it made me comfortable around people who are much older than I since I spent many hours as a young child hanging around nursing homes and memory units, which has shaped my focus in several projects here at Olin.
Engineering for Humanity was my first service learning experience – volunteering my skills as an engineer specifically to make one woman’s life better was an incredibly rewarding experience since I could directly see how my technical skills could be used for another’s benefit. I have always volunteered my time to help others; it was a part of the values instilled in me by my family. It was a new experience, however, to use my technical skills in this manner, to address the very real and pressing problems of getting out of bed in the morning and picking up bills off of the floor.
My research continued this theme of service learning. During the summer after my sophomore year I spent a week volunteering in a memory unit in a local assisted living facility. My goal was to learn more about how aides help people with memory issues so that I could design technology that would ease their burden. This hit especially close to home for me since my own grandmother had Alzheimer’s and passed away while I was in high school. My grandfather had been covering for her (and not letting the rest of the family see how bad her memory had gotten) for a few years before he passed away in 2005. When he passed away in order for her to stay safe, she needed someone to be with her 24-7. For instance, she would begin to cook a meal, turn on the stovetop, and then leave it on and forget that she was cooking (or would just forget to eat altogether). The family tried to do this in-home care for several months, but ultimately didn't have the resources either physically or emotionally to cope with her decline mentally.
This impacted me in several different ways. First, I learned how to interact with people with memory problems, which is a skill (for lack of a better word) that I have since used on multiple occasions to the surprise of many professional caregivers and aides. It also sparked a need in me to learn more about people who have Alzheimer’s and their caregivers so that I could design for families in a similar situation that my own was in, since there wasn’t much support for my family. Finally, it made me comfortable around people who are much older than I since I spent many hours as a young child hanging around nursing homes and memory units, which has shaped my focus in several projects here at Olin.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is imbued in the Olin curriculum throughout your four years as a student. It begins in the first year with a dedicated introductory class and appears later on as skills to develop in other courses. The introductory class, called The Entrepreneurial Initiative (TEI), included a two week “Change the World” project where the only requirement on the assignment sheet was to make a difference in some way in the community outside of Olin. My team of five engineers chose to connect college students looking for opportunities to engage with people outside of their age group with senior citizens at the local Council on Aging looking to interact with younger generations; this project occurred at the same time as my career-changing project in Engineering for Humanity and I was looking for a similar meaningful, purposeful experience. We hosted an event at the Council on Aging that broke down age-related barriers and disproved many stereotypes that each generation had about the other. This project taught me to think on my feet since running an event takes a lot of flexibility and also taught me a little about how to convince people. I will be honest and say that most college students don't envision spending a weekend morning playing board games with senior citizens down the road. Many afterward told me that they found the experience eye-opening since they hadn't had a chance to interact with senior citizens in an informal basis as equals, and that they felt less nervous around their elders as a result.
Three semesters later, I had the opportunity to start a business as part of a design course called Real Products – Real Markets. I took the skills I had learned in TEI and applied them on a larger scale to my business venture. I also learned several new skills in the product design and marketing spaces, including how to laser-cut cardstock, manipulate vectors in Adobe Illustrator, negotiate production rates with companies, market to potential customers, and develop and run an online shopping interface. My biggest takeaway from the course was to always have a backup plan since inevitably something will go wrong. I also happened to be in a safe environment where I didn’t have any monetary investment on the line, which would not be the case in a real startup setting. It would be all the more important to have a backup plan (and maybe a backup plan for the backup plan) if you had money invested and customers depending on your product. While I have not yet had the chance to start my own business outside of the safe environment at Olin, I have begun to make backup plans in case some of my larger-scale projects at Olin fall apart. This has become especially important as I have taken on more and more leadership roles on my teams and have had (on several occasions) teammates look to me for Plan B as unforeseen events have caused us to change course.
Three semesters later, I had the opportunity to start a business as part of a design course called Real Products – Real Markets. I took the skills I had learned in TEI and applied them on a larger scale to my business venture. I also learned several new skills in the product design and marketing spaces, including how to laser-cut cardstock, manipulate vectors in Adobe Illustrator, negotiate production rates with companies, market to potential customers, and develop and run an online shopping interface. My biggest takeaway from the course was to always have a backup plan since inevitably something will go wrong. I also happened to be in a safe environment where I didn’t have any monetary investment on the line, which would not be the case in a real startup setting. It would be all the more important to have a backup plan (and maybe a backup plan for the backup plan) if you had money invested and customers depending on your product. While I have not yet had the chance to start my own business outside of the safe environment at Olin, I have begun to make backup plans in case some of my larger-scale projects at Olin fall apart. This has become especially important as I have taken on more and more leadership roles on my teams and have had (on several occasions) teammates look to me for Plan B as unforeseen events have caused us to change course.
Global Awareness
While I have not traveled extensively abroad since I was very young, several of my projects have been influenced by cultures from around the world and by different cultures within the United States.
Two projects come immediately to mind when I consider where global culture has influenced my projects most substantially. In my senior capstone project my team spent several weeks researching the effects of aging and how age influenced perception of personal worth in other cultures. One of the most influential case studies we looked at was a study of elderly in India, where age is revered and death is accepted as a natural part of life. This heavily shaped the product we ended up pitching to Care.com, since we had a model of successful aging to be inspired by. US culture worships the young and beautiful, while as Indian culture places worth on age and experience. This case study reminded me of more than just a different way to approach aging - it reminded me that often an issue we face here is already resolved in another culture or by nature. It reminded me that, in addition to taking inspiration from people themselves, I also need to take inspiration from other cultures, other norms, and other problem-solving methods to make the best solution possible.
A second project that incorporated multiple cultural influences was my design of the drink Cameli, a concentrated frothy tea-based drink similar in concept to espresso. My team was inspired by the thick and flavorful drinks of Matcha (from Japan), Po Cha (from Tibet) and Yerba Mate (from Argentina). We learned that the reasons people drink these in small quantities (which reduce the environmental impact of heating water) range from the fact that the drinks are so filling to that the flavors in the drink are strong and almost overwhelming. These drinks inspired us to create Cameli but also made me rethink the need for large, over-the-top purchases in my own life. I will admit quickly that, given the option, I will choose a larger drink over a smaller one. In exploring these drinks from different cultures, I started to question my own need for quantity over quality. I have since been more likely to enjoy things (especially food and drink) in lesser quantities but of a higher quality. This, in turn, has the added bonus of reducing my environmental impact since my focus is beginning to shift from gaining more to gaining the right things.
While my Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship empowering youth in Clarksdale was a domestic project, I still had the chance to learn about a culture very different than our own. People in Clarksdale approach life in a very different way than people in the Northeast – there is much more of a small-town feel where everybody knows everybody else's business, speech is slower and more well-thought-out, and people tend to stay much more within their socioeconomic and ethnic groups. In addition, racism and poverty run rampant in and around the city; when you step into Clarksdale it’s almost as if you have gone back fifty years and are experiencing the south pre-Brown v Board of education. The students in the public high schools are almost entirely black and the students in private school are almost all white. I wanted to highlight this project since I was taken aback by the difference in culture I found in Clarksdale - I hadn't expected to be in such a different environment and wasn't quite sure how to carry myself in it. Instead of seeking out cultural awareness I had it thrust upon me. Because of this, I am now more aware of the dichotomies that exist even within the United States in terms of economic equality and political control.
Two projects come immediately to mind when I consider where global culture has influenced my projects most substantially. In my senior capstone project my team spent several weeks researching the effects of aging and how age influenced perception of personal worth in other cultures. One of the most influential case studies we looked at was a study of elderly in India, where age is revered and death is accepted as a natural part of life. This heavily shaped the product we ended up pitching to Care.com, since we had a model of successful aging to be inspired by. US culture worships the young and beautiful, while as Indian culture places worth on age and experience. This case study reminded me of more than just a different way to approach aging - it reminded me that often an issue we face here is already resolved in another culture or by nature. It reminded me that, in addition to taking inspiration from people themselves, I also need to take inspiration from other cultures, other norms, and other problem-solving methods to make the best solution possible.
A second project that incorporated multiple cultural influences was my design of the drink Cameli, a concentrated frothy tea-based drink similar in concept to espresso. My team was inspired by the thick and flavorful drinks of Matcha (from Japan), Po Cha (from Tibet) and Yerba Mate (from Argentina). We learned that the reasons people drink these in small quantities (which reduce the environmental impact of heating water) range from the fact that the drinks are so filling to that the flavors in the drink are strong and almost overwhelming. These drinks inspired us to create Cameli but also made me rethink the need for large, over-the-top purchases in my own life. I will admit quickly that, given the option, I will choose a larger drink over a smaller one. In exploring these drinks from different cultures, I started to question my own need for quantity over quality. I have since been more likely to enjoy things (especially food and drink) in lesser quantities but of a higher quality. This, in turn, has the added bonus of reducing my environmental impact since my focus is beginning to shift from gaining more to gaining the right things.
While my Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship empowering youth in Clarksdale was a domestic project, I still had the chance to learn about a culture very different than our own. People in Clarksdale approach life in a very different way than people in the Northeast – there is much more of a small-town feel where everybody knows everybody else's business, speech is slower and more well-thought-out, and people tend to stay much more within their socioeconomic and ethnic groups. In addition, racism and poverty run rampant in and around the city; when you step into Clarksdale it’s almost as if you have gone back fifty years and are experiencing the south pre-Brown v Board of education. The students in the public high schools are almost entirely black and the students in private school are almost all white. I wanted to highlight this project since I was taken aback by the difference in culture I found in Clarksdale - I hadn't expected to be in such a different environment and wasn't quite sure how to carry myself in it. Instead of seeking out cultural awareness I had it thrust upon me. Because of this, I am now more aware of the dichotomies that exist even within the United States in terms of economic equality and political control.