Identity, Confidence, Community: My Olin Story in Five Graphs

It's been about a month since I graduated! I'll be writing some more general reflections, including one specifically about community, but I was inspired by a conversation with a friend to draw some graphs that I thought were interesting enough to share on their own.

There are five graphs: confidence as an engineer, confidence as a mathematician, identity as an engineer, identity as a mathematician, and sense of community.

The time axis is divided into semesters and summers. My first summer was spent on the Critical Language Azerbaijani program, my second was in Singapore doing chemical engineering research, and during my third summer I was at UCLA doing applied math research in the RIPS program. I was abroad at Budapest Semesters in Mathematics during my junior fall.

All the graphs are annotated, but the annotations are pretty small; click or zoom in to read them!

It Flaps But Does Not Fly: Thoughts on Mechanical and Aerospace Systems

MechAero is a course I should not have taken.

Part of the mechanical engineering degree is a mechE elective, and MechAero counts as such an elective. It isn't taught very often, and I was excited because I thought, based on the course description, that I would get to do a lot of analysis, especially analysis related to fluid mechanics. Instead, the course was almost entirely a mechanical design class with little to no support for learning to do mech design.

Arduinos, Valves, and Raining Patterns: Thoughts on Principles of Engineering

Principles of Engineering (PoE) is very much a do-learn course. It's really a class about integration, starting with three labs using Arduino Unos and then spending the rest of the semester on a team project that must include significant mechanical, electrical, and software systems. I was nervous about PoE going in because I was a mechE who hadn't done much mechanical design, so I wasn't sure what role I would take on the project team. I ended up having a lot more fun than I expected, and PoE contributed more than any other class this semester to my growth as a mechanical engineering. I wouldn't have expected to say this going in, but I think PoE is an important class to have in the curriculum, and I'm really glad it's a graduation requirement.

The Most Project-y Time of the Year

We're more than halfway through the semester, and I'm doing projects in three of my four classes. Here's a little bit about what I'm working on at the moment:

I Am a MechE

In this month's issue of Frankly Speaking, Olin's newspaper, Meg Lidrbauch wrote about trying to do too much and the culture around that at Olin. It's a good piece, and I agree with its main point, but I'm going to go off of something that's a bit of a side argument in the article.

Meg talks about realizing that she's not a mechanical engineer, and in doing so she describes the typical Olin mechE as someone who does design in Solidworks, puts a lot of time into one of the large vehicle project teams, and can be found in the machine shop.

But this is far too broad a brush, even at Olin. Amelie, Erzsi, Ariel, and Antoinette are all mechanical engineering majors, and I've had major requirement classes with all of them. Amelie can CAD and machine but would much rather spend her time on sensor research. Erzsi builds and loves being in the machine shop, but she does not CAD. Ariel is interested in sustainability and helps lead the Human Powered Vehicles team, so she fits the description but has her own slant. Antoinette prefers conceptual design to hardcore mechanical design or CADing and is really interested in K-12 education. Actually, one of the people who conforms most to that image of the Olin mechE is much more of an electrical engineer; each month he chooses an integrated circuit of the month and writes a little bit about it in a newsletter that he distributes through the dining hall.

Of course there are mechEs here like the one described. The other two people on my MechAero team pretty much fit the stereotype. For that matter, so do at least two-thirds of the rest of the class. The image accurately describes a lot of people. That's how it originated! But this is not the only way to be a mechE. I identify less as a mechanical engineer at Olin than I do anywhere else because of the prevalence of this idea of what it means to be a mechE at Olin. Outside the Bubble, calling myself a mechanical engineer provides others with reasonably accurate information about my knowledge base, but that's not the case at Olin.

Back at Olin

Being back at Olin is still a little weird. I'm living in a different dorm, and most of my friends have already gone through that adjustment. I'm in a double instead of having a large room to myself in a three person flat. I don't know a quarter of the school. (On the first day of one of my classes, the professor had us all introduce ourselves because "There's always that one junior who doesn't know the first years," and the other non-first-years pointed at me.) I'm not taking a math class, and I am taking four engineering classes. Olin culture is very different from BSM culture, and the Needham/Wellesley line is decidedly not Budapest. It's a lot to get used to, but it's been great to see people again, and I'm starting to settle in. Here's what I'm up to as far as academics this semester: