i-LifeLong Learning

ABET states that “Engineering programs must demonstrate that their students attain a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage in life-long learning;” and I fully agree. Engineering isn’t about getting a degree and then getting a job. What I think sets engineers apart, is a constant pursuit of knowledge. The world and technology are always changing and evolving, and we must have the ability to learn and change with it. Good engineers are going to constantly be trying to learn and gain experience to be on top of new ideas and changes.

An important part of learning is knowing where to gather knowledge that is useful and accurate. For me during my time as an undergrad I have used a lot of different sources. Textbooks are always great because you can highlight passages and appendixes are often easy to navigate. Textbooks are great to because they are peer reviewed, edited, and contain sources. You know what information you are getting is going to be accurate, which is why one of my go to for information are textbook when I have them available. Now gathering information online is where things get trickier and as engineers, we must develop strategies to locate and evaluate accurate sources. What’s awesome about the internet is it allows people to quickly gather information on almost any subject, however this is also a negative too because that means there is the potential for misleading information. When looking up stuff pertaining to engineering it is especially important that the information is accurate because a lot of things we do as engineers have a lot of importance on the world around us and if we are designing and planning based of inaccurate knowledge we’ve accrued then there could be a lot of consequences, even people dying in some extreme cases, for example the faulty design of a bridge. When I’m looking for information online my first strategies are to try to use a source from google scholar or some search engine similar. Academic journals and writing are usually always peer reviewed and have detailed layouts of how their information was gathered, what assumptions were made. This allows the reader to see for themselves if information can be deemed accurate. If you can see that the design or experiment behind the data collection has a lot of flaws, then it’s safe to say the conclusions are probably not accurate. Also, anything that’s peer reviewed is always a lot more accurate. When people in engineering fields all review each other’s work, it’s a great way to find flaws and inaccuracy to allow the engineer to put their best work possible. When this process happens us engineers as the readers can be comfortable with accepting the conclusions and data to be accurate and to use it to increase our own knowledge. When I use sources other than scholarly articles I usually try to gather as many sources as I can. If I’m trying to find information on a certain subject and I look at five different websites talking about that subject I can use what they are saying to help determine if its accurate. If all the sources are saying the same thing, and they have clear and concise writing as well as sources of their own then I know that information is not accurate. If the five different sources are all disagreeing with each other then I know someone is probably putting for faulty writing. From their I look at the individual credibility of the sources. Websites that end in .Gov and .Edu, whose writing come from the government or educational departments are usually always going to be more credible than any .com website. The government and universities have a responsibility to put forth accurate information so you can be sure that almost everything they put forth is going to be accurate. I spend a lot of time gather information online and the information I gather is going to be necessary to use in my engineering career so its important that the information is accurate. Ultimately, I always try to find writing that’s are peer reviewed, come from credible sources, have clear and concise writing and include their sources, and have information that matches those of other similar writings from credible sources.

For an engineer finding credible information is the first step, the next step is applying that new knowledge. Now in classes one of the main objectives is to learn the material and then apply that on a test to show your mastery of the material. As I’ve gotten closer to graduation, I’ve started to apply my knowledge to more real situation and not just on test or homework. In my FABE 3510 Intro to Biological Engineer class I recently used knowledge I had gained of the production of cheese to make cheese. I was required to write a paper about the different steps on cheese making and what all goes into what turns milk into cheese. I learned how Rennet acts to cut some of the protein bonds that keep milk liquid and thus makes the liquid coagulate into the cheese we eat, I learned what the optimal temperatures for this to occur are, and what enzymes can do to the reaction to change the flavors and appearance of the cheese. Then in class we were given Rennet, milk, and an enzyme and I used what I had just learned to know I had to heat the milk up and then add the rennet and enzyme to make the cheese. Our professor showed us some of the necessary physical steps of cheese making, like draining the left-over milk out and stuff, but a lot of the more scientific side of thing with temperatures and stuff I used what I had just learned in order to make the cheese. This was one of the first time I had done something so hands on in applying my engineering knowledge, which is what engineering is all about. Engineers not only do the math, physics, and chemistry to figure out how to solve a problem and create a design, but they apply all that to solve the problem in the real world.

As of now I am an Undergraduate major in Food, Agriculture, and Biological Engineer. I am specializing in Biological Engineering, and my hope is to go to medical school and become a doctor. More specifically I want to be an Oncologist. My dream one day is to be on the forefront of Cancer research and one day cure it all together. The world, including our body is full of Biological processes, and I think bioengineering could find a way to edit or fix those processes that cause cancer, and create new processes that destroy cancer cells. Cancer and our approach to treating it is always changing, we discovered new causes of Cancer and new ways to treat cancer, which is why lifelong learning is something that is so important for my future goals. If I wear to go to med school, learn that stuff and then never try to learn anything new, I would fall behind in the cancer research field almost instantly. The only way to a cure is through progress and learning, and the only way I could be a true Oncologist, and to help as many people as I can is to constantly be trying to learn new things. New bioprocesses, medicines, more research. It is vital to constantly be learning, especially when what I learn could be saving lives.

As of now my plan for further formal education is to go to Graduate school to learn more about bioengineering specifically, I want to learn more about food and agriculture as well because I think they all fit together very closely. Once I get a masters, I then plan to go t med school where I can then focus more specifically on Medicine and Oncology. My hope is to take my knowledge of Biological engineering, as well as things from Food and Agriculture engineering, to approach cancer research.

However, I don’t plan to limit my learning to just the learning from those formal education sources. I also plan to learn things on my own. I plan to always stay up to date on new research in medical and engineering fields by reading scholarly journals and articles. My favorite method of informal learning is podcast. I think podcast are great because they give people a platform to easily share knowledge on a global scale. Joe Rogan’s podcast alone reach millions of people and he host all kinds of people, including Medical Doctors, Engineers, Businessman, Politicians, and Comedians. Listening to his podcast I’ve discovered a lot of other podcast with hours and hours of information to consume. In this digital age I think Podcast are one of the ultimate ways of learning on your own and is my number one source of information on basically anything I don’t learn in a school setting. In graduate and medical school, I would also like to join organization dedicated to learning. Finding like minded people with similar goals and aspirations and getting together with them to discover and learn on your own is an inspiring thing and I would like to find something like that to push my boundaries and help me growth in knowledge