Frustrations

Ok. Pet peeve time. Dear "credible" source - why, when you know where actual sources of infectious disease studies are, are you quotes New York Times and Wall Street Journal? Why not go directly to the source? This makes my job significantly harder.

It's kind of funny how much one's "to-read list" says about you. I need more fiction in my list. I also want to see The Golden Compass, and then re-read that book.

Also, have you ever looked at greeting cards when you're not buying a thank you card or a birthday card (or some similarly occasioned card?). It is especially hard when there are certain off topic subjects (ie alcohol). It is VERY difficult. All the funny cards involve alcohol.

Per Megan's request, I'm posting the text of my scholarship application here. Blurgh.

"Service is the rent we pay for living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time."
"Education is for improving the lives of others and leaving your community and world better than you found it."
~Marian Wright Edelman, Children's Defense Fund

While exploring Greenwich Village in New York City one winter break evening after a day of volunteering with Part of the Solution in the Bronx, I found this inscription on a playground mural. I was surprised to stumble upon a mural that eloquently phrased my feelings about service and education, feelings I had only managed to bumble through before. I firmly believe the job of the engineer is to ameliorate the lives of others around us; not only is it the rent we pay for living, it is the definition of our occupation. The Obligation of the Engineer states that the engineer must be “conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of Earth’s precious wealth” – our education and our skill set is, at the very core, to improve the world around us so that others may live comfortably. We cannot improve the lives of others without understanding the people we are trying to help. Humans are not often easily explained by orderly equations; they are individuals with emotions, personalities, and histories. Socio-humanistic courses provide a starting point to understand the unknowns from the human variables in otherwise controlled engineered solutions.

So much of my education has happened in the courses that were not required, in the experiences outside of the classroom. I found Alternative Spring Break (ASB) on Quad Day my freshman year and was immediately drawn to the idea of fully escaping campus for a week through engagement in service and emersion in other cultures and ways of life. Through ASB, I have explored six different non-profit organizations and have been directly exposed to many different issues challenging society today, not to mention the great friends I met along the way. I have gained leadership, ran trainings, conducted interviews, and served on a community board – I feel like these opportunities have given me more work-applicable tools than most of my engineering courses combined. Our seventeen-member planning board essentially functioned as the staff of a non profit organization and with my position as site facilitator trainer I was part of a small management team in charge of a 50 person staff – similar challenges have arisen in my internship experiences to show me just how much I learned from ASB.

Outside of ASB, spending time abroad and in non-technical courses expanded my worldview. It is impossible to summarize the lessons I learned during my semester in France, but it taught me about things we take for granted as Americans and the biases I have about the world. Ling111, Language in Globalization, introduced theories of the effects of our language on how we perceive the world and communicate those perceptions, along with the way culture and language interact and change. With today’s growing communication technology, working with international teams is becoming increasingly important – so much of working as an effective team comes from understanding culture, rather than just speaking the same language. Psychology classes have helped me understand the human element in the world, while human factors courses have broadened my understanding of how humans interact with the physical designs engineers construct.

After completing my education, I plan to work for Accenture Technology Labs in Chicago. One of the allures of the Technology Labs is working creatively with real business problems and cutting edge technology. As the Research and Development arm of Accenture, the Technology Labs presents challenges I am interested in – how technology shapes society, which then changes society’s demands of technology. Another intriguing opportunity is the possibility to do international development consulting work with Accenture after two to three years of experience, fitting my interest piqued by studying abroad and attending workshops on socially-responsible, sustainable international development. In short, it is an opportunity to use my education and skills in order to leave the world a better place than I found it.