In Fall 2017 our senior class of EEs & MEs will be merged with the senior class from Chongqing University, our partner university in China! As preparation for this event, in August 2016 I, along with three other Honors Engineering students, founded the CEAS Engineering Diplomats under the guidance and direction of CEAS and the Joint Co-op Institute.
The Engineering Diplomats is an organization that seeks to:
Build excitement and understanding for the arrival of CQU students transferring to UC's main campus
Create community and foster innovation through intercultural relations
To date the engineering diplomats have done a myriad of things:
Events:
Info Sessions
Game Days
Food/Social Activities
Chongqing University Tour
Traveled to China for a week to meet and connect with CQU students
Toured CQU campuses
Networked with faculty & staff
Program Initiatives & Planning
Peer Mentorship Program
Welcome Week Event
Currently, this is an ongoing honor project. However, this experience has been informative so far. I've had the opportunity to create an experience for students from a completely different culture without much initial knowledge of the culture. It's a continual learning process that causes me to constantly pay attention to and learn about the differences between cultures.
Food Is Culture
During the Spring & Summer 2016 semester, I studied abroad in South Korea as an exchange student for 6 months. Since it was a complete cultural immersion, I worked to discover the overall history of South Korean cuisine, as well as the similarities and differences between each region and/or city of South Korea, some of which I visited. My whole honors experience is based off the idea that something seemingly small, like the food that we eat, is closely related and connected with the history and culture of a country. How did kimchi become a crucial, signature side dish of Korean cuisine? Why do Koreans use chopsticks and spoons over forks and knives? Why do Koreans eat seaweed soup only on birthdays? How does Korean food and the customs and beliefs surrounding it both reflect and shape the Korean culture? From these discoveries, I simultaneously gained a deeper appreciation for both the Korean culture and my own personal ethnic and national culture. In addition, I expanded my cultural awareness by pushing myself to further develop my identity as a global citizen.
Expanding My Research Knowledge: Protege and Programs
In summer of 2015, I was given the wonderful opportunity to participate in the Protege program. The Protege program is a research program created by the College of Engineering and Applied Science to give a hand-picked number of freshman undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in research projects that are currently going on at the University of Cincinnati (UC). I ended up completing this research program in conjunction with the WISE Program, which is a research program for women in pursuing degrees in the STEM fields. Before that summer, I had no experience in the research field, but I was interested in exploring that aspect of engineering. During the course of the program, I was paired with a UC faculty member in the biomedical engineering field. I worked full-time on the project, and went to weekly seminars and workshops focusing on professional development specific to the STEM field. Some examples of seminars include, "How to Write and Abstract", "Pursuing a Graduate Degree in STEM", and "Creating Connections through Networking".
From my participation in the protege program, I was able to better tailor my career interests and goals. I gained a greater understanding of what I might want to do for my future engineering co-ops. Additionally, it connected me with faculty and staff, as well as current undergraduate students who are also in the STEM field.
For more details about the project itself, see "Co-ops & International Experiences" page.
Kids Who Kill
During Fall 2015 semester I took an honors seminar called “Kids Who Kill”. This course allowed me to analyze the history and demographics of homicidal children and adolescents; the theories and debates about psychosocial, genetic and metaphysical causation; legal issues and debates about punishment; and the evolution of the homicidal youth character in literature, film and television. The course explored this idea by having the class read fiction books, watch movies and documentaries, read articles published in various newspapers, magazines, and online forums, as well as read various neuroscience and criminal justice books and textbooks. At the end of the course, I also visited an incarceration facility for violent youth offenders to see the intersectionality between the justice system, violent youth offenders, and the factors that influence youths to break the law.
While the course does have quite a strange title, it was very interesting! Although I am an Electrical Engineering major, I have a strong interest in criminal justice. I even considered majoring in it! So, this course allowed me to explore an interest of mine aside from my major. I learned a lot about the juvenile justice system and how it was developed and improved. This course brought up many controversial and important topics, like “Is the juvenile system’s purpose rehabilitation (working to return delinquents to society) or retribution (holding in jail to pay for crimes)?” and “To what extent should brain chemistry and brain scans play a part in court?”. It really made me think and question my stances on certain topics, and I was able to share and debate opinions with my classmates.
Exploring My Leadership Style
Over Spring Semester 2015, I participated in the Emerging Ethnics Leaders Institute and ROAR Tour Guide training. I decided to use my involvement in these two programs as an honors experience to explore my leadership style. When I enter the workforce after graduating college, it is expected that I come with a certain set of skills. More and more often, companies are looking to employ the skill set of leaders. Therefore, while in college it is important that I develop my leadership "brand", or the style in which I lead. I wanted to better understand my strengths and weakness so that I could work more effectively with my currents peers at UC as well as my future peers when I enter the workforce. From this experience, I've realized that I can use leadership skills in every activity I do whether I am the designated leader or a fellow teammate. Being a leader means listening to others' opinions and being open to doing things a different way. It means being a team player and working hard to complete assigned tasks or communicating if that's not possible. And because of this, spring semester proved to be the semester of leadership. I was asked to speak at different venues, and won a leadership recognition award from my scholarship program.