Hey! My name is Jess, and I am an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania studying bioengineering. In this major, I would like to learn how engineering skills and problem solving techniques are used in the field of biology, especially medicine. I am very interested in medicine because I am considering applying to medical school; I would like to have an engineering background, however, so I stand out in the application process and develop better problem solving skills. Specifically, I would love the opportunity to work in a research lab with a professor; I enjoy hands-on learning so learning the inner workings of a lab, including equipment and procedure, would be a dream come true. Besides the hands-on desire, I would also like to learn about the range of topics in which bioengineering covers; it is a vast discipline that currently overwhelms me with so many choices!

Initially, my major was mechanical engineering; I changed my major even before beginning my freshman year because I realized I liked biological "machines" better than the typical machine in, for example, cars. I came to this realization after talking to my cousin and her friends who were all starting medical school this fall; I enjoyed talking about the human body, new vaccines, and other related topics. Since I did not want to fully divorce engineering, I found a good fit - bioengineering. With bioengineering, I can apply engineering principles and ways of thinking and problem solving to biological and medical problems and mysteries. Though I was immediately fascinated by being able to merge engineering with biology, I never truly understood, and still do not understand, exactly what it is that bioengineers do on a day to day basis. Talking to a few professors in a panel during my Advancing Women in Engineering Pre-Orientation Program, I learned that bioengineers can work as scientists in some respects; they can work in labs, perform experiments, and draw their own conclusions about the workings of cells or other biological "machines."

As I explore the rapidly-expanding field of bioengineering, I begin to find many sub-fields that catch my interest; I would like to learn about each sub-field so that I can become more familiar with each one and decide exactly what I would like to do with my degree. Some options/fields/topics that intrigue me (as of today) are:
tissue engineering
pharmaceutical engineering
genetic engineering
This list will probably change in about a couple of weeks; I am constantly changing my mind about something or another.

As I was looking up some sub-fields in bioengineering, I came across an article that really shows how bioengineering is picking up speed in the technological world; cells are starting to be studied and even modeled using a computer according to Brandon Keim, who wrote an article entitled "Cellular Counter Brings Computer Programming to Life" for Wired Science. In this article, Keim states that counters combining different proteins are being used to better model different types of cells on a computer. An aspect of the article that I found was interesting was that, in order to be able to model cells, different computerized components were being used one by one to "build" a cell, just as different machine parts or circuits are built piece by piece. I found this interesting because it shows the connection between the different types of engineering; bioengineers can work like electrical engineers, as suggested by James Collins of Boston University, while using mechanical ideas in order to study something that is living. This aspect of engineering interests me specifically; I am the type of person who cannot do the same thing on a day to day basis, so having the opportunity to study and work on projects using different approaches and processes appeals to me greatly.

Reading this article, I could not help but think about how far the bioengineering field has progressed even in the last couple of years. New advances in medicine and technology have greatly propelled this somewhat new field. One of the most exciting aspects of entering such an expanding field is that I have the chance to become a part of a project or research team that can stumble on a breakthrough that drastically changes people's understanding of biology or another aspect in medicine. For example, the creation of the artificial heart for transplants was a milestone for both the medical and engineering worlds. I would love to have been a part of the team of scientists, doctors, and researchers who developed the the first usable heart; I would like to have the feeling that all my hard work, countless hours spent in the lab, and tedious experiments were all worth something to someone who benefited from my work. I feel that working as a bioengineering should not be for fame or glory but for the advancement of technologies that can save lives, make lives easier, and prevent illnesses.