2022 - 23
This year has largely not gone to plan. From my first year at UC, I was sold on the idea of the International Co-op programme and was excited to participate in it. Unfortunately, once I was faced with the reality of moving to a small town in Germany, earning about 1/3 of my regular co-op pay for the same work I would do in the US, and being disconnected from my friends, projects, and other campus opportunities, I became disillusioned with the whole idea. While I wish I had had this realisation before I dropped a co-op and enrolled in the study abroad class, I am glad that I didn't have to wait until actually being in Germany to start having regrets. I was very lucky to have had a strong connection with AtriCure and been able to find another double co-op on short notice. And what a fantastic experience it's been. I've been tasked with owning a project creating a resorbable generation of our successful AtriClip line. Over the course of the last few months, I've developed an in-vitro test method for the company and will be participating in an ASTM Round Robin test with labs all over the country. Our project has shown enough success that I've been tasked with designing the layout for the new lab space that's being created for our team. I'm excited to see my work come to fruition in such a fulfilling way. It's strange to have so much of my year be dominated by co-op, I suppose this is a taster of what the rest of my working life is going to be. Already we're being asked about our plans to apply to the company post-graduation, whether we're interested in the Engineering Development Program and what kinds of roles we'd like to prepare for. It's scary to think that the undergraduate chapter of my life is coming to a close so soon.
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Outside work, I'm also gearing up for my senior year on campus. I've been working with NIS to determine a sort of 'capstone' for my involvement. I hope to create the final iteration of our partnership with NLFB, at least final in terms of my involvement with it. Pre-pandemic, E2C was a DAAP event that connected students with a local non-profit and allowed them to contribute hundreds of service hours over a single intensive design-sprint session. I would love to create something similar with NLFB and will be using some of this summer to plan and organise that event for the Fall. I've also applied for RAPP as its always been highly recommended to me and I'm excited to meet another community of students looking to effect social change on campus. I've only had my interview so far but I'm already excited for the structure of this programme and the opportunities I'll have to learn from some great people doing cool work. I also think I'll finally be able to join Engineers Without Borders, which I've been promising to do since my Freshman year. With the benefit of my on-the-ground experience from Tanzania, I think I'll have a useful perspective to bring to the project teams. I might end up repeating the same mistake I made as a freshman and over-committing to a bunch of different things, but at this moment in time, I'm just enjoying the anticipation of going out with a bang.
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