The Magic of Engineering for the Customer
Creating a schedule for the first time can be a daunting task, especially for a first year engineering student. There are so many aspects to consider…
Sometimes, I can’t find a single word to get started on an assignment and end up staring at my page for ages. Others, I find myself scribbling excitedly into my weekly English journal at an embarrassing volume in the library’s quiet section. Luckily for me (though perhaps unfortunate for the silent studiers nearby), tonight I experienced the latter as I got increasingly wound up in my stream-of-consciousness entry about the connections I was finding between the classes I’m taking and the academic experiences I’ve been having here so far.
As an engineer, I opted to take an English seminar for elective credit this fall because I know that I like to write and was drawn in by the title of my specific section of this course: Perceiving Environments. I’ll admit, the class has been more work than I’d anticipated with no shortage of readings, essays, journal entries, presentations, research, and field trips on the list of weekly to-do’s, but I love the break it offers from my problem sets and lecture-style classes as a course that’s capped at ten students and run by an engaging-but-easy-going professor.
The first unit of this class explored environmental literature by considering setting and conveying the feelings associated with a place through verbal descriptions, which was especially challenging for me as someone who takes more to articulating research than crafting creative narratives. The second, most recent unit dealt specifically with writing white papers, and I enjoyed reading through the proposals for urban developments that introduced me to new concepts and sparked new interests, like the urban heat island effect and green infrastructure. As we discuss everything from styles of writing to issues of food justice in prisons to noise pollution at Tufts, I find the topics in this class overlapping with discussions had in the Urban Policy, Planning, and Prosperity (UP3) club and lessons covered in my Engineering in Crisis class.
The more I learn about urban environments, the more I find myself appreciating little aspects of Medford and Somerville.
UP3 deserves a blog post of its own, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but I will say that it’s introduced me to a group of inquisitive, informed students who eagerly meet each week to discuss issues like gentrification, cities like Detroit, or bring in guest speakers to talk about mind-blowing fields such as cognitive architecture. Things I’ve learned in these casual Tuesday night meetings have allowed me to connect to topics of which I had no knowledge two months ago; I could talk about the impact of the new Whole Foods in Jamaica Plain when it came up in class and understand the plans for the Boston Avenue intersection when we reviewed a white paper for homework. I’ve been able to tailor the focus of my writing assignments to include my urban interests and use this education to get more out of the club meetings, too.
Even my Engineering in Crisis class overlaps with English. I never thought I’d be looking at images of the BP oil spill in both classes or considering the transportation of toxic waste from both an engineering and a literary lens in the same week, but the more I branch out here, the more I discover connections between seemingly unrelated things and find myself getting excited about how many different vehicles there are for pursuing my curiosities. It’s fun to see where these intersections (literally — urban planning, get it?) occur and start to picture my future as a culmination of my skills, passions, and education, and it’s gratifying to feel like my widespread interests can share a direction.
Going on a bike tour of Somerville with some people from UP3 was a great way to see new parts of the city and learn about ways developments are improving the area. Guess this place can foster growth for people as much as vegetables!
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