2 Weeks In

      I am excited looking forward to this semester.  Although I'm still taking a few GIRs, I'm starting to take classes in the areas that interest me - and 20.020 is one of those classes.  I am excited about the format of the class as it is one of the first project/lab based classes I'm taking at the institute (the other being 6.01) and having the opportunity to work with upperclassmen in Course 20 should help me get a better idea of what the major itself looks like.  The last bit is particularly important to me because I'm currently debating between studying Course 20 (which is quite new to me) or Course 2 (which I spent most of my high school experimenting with).  As of now I think I'm leading towards the side of 20 and my participation in this class as well as on the school's iGEM team keeps pushing me farther in that direction.  I'll always love building things but when I see the range of possibilities of synthetic biology, I feel like it is a field that I could use to have a more broad and significant impact.  Sure, I can appreciate that biological engineering in general and synthetic bio in particular are not anywhere near the precise engineering disciplines that mechanical and electrical engineering are - so much remains to be understood about how biology works - but that just makes me more excited to get involved.  The thought of how young the field is could be disheartening at first but then I think of how much I could potentially bring to the table and how cool it would be to be one of the people who helps bring synthetic biology to the level of MechE as far as engineering disciplines go.

      I don't imagine that any of those lofty long-term goals will be achieved over this next semester in 20.020 but I'm really looking forward to seeing the ideas that people can think up in that time and hope that they will motivate us as we move forward in our education.