Last week, we started by creating a proposal for our team projects with the intention of brainstorming and evaluating our solution in the coming days. However, when Dr. Leautaud arrived at Poly from Rice University on Thursday morning, we assumed it was to have a coaching session on our presentations for the pitch competition. Little did we know that we were auditioning for one of the team spots to compete in the pitch competition that afternoon. You could imagine our surprise to find out we needed to complete half of the engineering design process in a matter of hours. This really increased the pressure for my team and I to have solid plan and collaborate on every aspect of our design. When starting this internship, I had already anticipated our project timeline to be at an accelerated pace considering we are working full time on our projects, but with the Malawi Technology Innovation Pitch Night right around the corner, there was added pressure for each team to finalize their solution. Having already written our proposal, we had a few ideas of what our solution would look like, but in that time crunch, we brainstormed, selected a solution to pursue, created our presentation slides, and ended up giving a great presentation. Unfortunately, our group was not selected to present at the pitch competition, but from our experience, I realized the added pressure of a suddenly constricted time frame taught us that timelines are only a suggestion and there will be occasions where you have to improvise in order to accomplish a task. Despite being stressed along the way, this experience also taught me that everyone handles pressure in different ways and working with others requires you to be patient to understand their different approach (especially since I was a bundle of stress).
Despite a stressful work week, that weekend, Christina (one of the interns from Poly) invited us to attend the very first Biomedical Engineering Student Society (BESS) meeting. As we approached the room, immediately, we noticed uplifting music and large gathering of people present. What I thought would be a simple ceremony to mark a celebratory first appeared to be party. When we entered the room full of students, all eyes were on us (we may have been a tad late). After filing into the first available seats, the MC for the event announces that each of us will be coming up and introducing ourselves. This came as a surprise considering we had just come to attend the event and support a friend. After each one of us went up and stated the basic name, college, year, and major, the ceremony proceeded with a quiz competition between a handful of biomedical engineers in two teams. This turned out to be no ordinary quiz with both detailed technical and biological questions leaving me stumped majority of the time, but this proved no challenge for the Poly students who fired off answers like it was second nature. Overall, I thought this was a unique way to engage all the students and showcase the brilliant and resourceful students biomedical engineers are. Once the ceremony was over and we went to take pictures to commemorate the event, I saw the sheer number of students that took the time on a Saturday during one of the busiest times of the semester to show their dedication and passion for biomedical engineering. To be honest it was inspiring, especially the amount of time and effort the officers put in to organizing the event considering their schedules as interns, full-time students, or both.
As I recollect on the events that took place during the BESS meeting, I think about my position as the recently appointed treasurer of Society of Women Engineers (SWE). With another year approaching I hope to exude the same excitement and excellence for female engineers of every discipline as the students and officers of BESS have (maybe even steal the quiz competition idea because it was so much fun).
That’s all for now!
– S