My service artifact is my photo of one of my lunches in the “Lunch With a Grad Student” program. I have participated in this program for several times and I find it very valuable because I get to interact with undergrads who are considering going on to graduate school. I like this partly because of the satisfaction I get by giving advice, and partly because I think it does good for the students to get to survey people’s experiences. I wish I had participated in a program like Lunch With a Grad Student when I was considering grad school.
Me and undergraduate Aerospace student Sandro Filho
It makes me feel valuable to the students because I have had a pretty wide range of experiences in grad school. I have been a teaching assistant and grader at two different institutions (called a Graduate Student Instructor or GSI at U of M). I have also been an Engineering Teaching Consultant (ETC), which is where I learned more about the experiences of other GSIs and where I was instructed in contemporary teaching methodologies. I believe these programs have given me perspective on the overall experience beyond my own opinions.
Many people have had the experience of switching institutions from undergrad to grad school (as I have). Since many students will not necessarily be asking about grad school at Michigan, but instead asking general questions about the overall experience, I think it is important to hear a bit about what different institutions have to offer. I have also done recruiting for UM (at MIT), as well as visited various national labs, company labs, and labs at other universities, so I think that I understand some aspects of what attracts students to the different available options.
It’s important to help people on an individual basis and this is one way in which I can do that. I have tried to make myself available to anyone considering the different options available to them whenever the opportunity arises.
Recently, I have also begun to help a nonprofit that works for the public good in developing countries to enhance their product. I believe that this is an excellent way to help those in other countries achieve goals for which they may not otherwise have the resources. In this particular example, the product is within the price range of the communities that may use it, but probably not including the costs of development that a for-profit company would incur. It’s a great way for me to learn about what resources, both material and human, are available in other places, what people can be expected to complete on their own, and what people with resources different from our own may need help with.
What’s exciting to me about this is that I believe there are a multitude of opportunities like this. I think this is a practical way to help people, using skills that I have right now. There is a disconnect between people who need help with basic goods and services and those who are in a position to supply them (which most of us in the USA are). I think it is possible to break through this disconnect, if only to a small degree, by this kind of collaboration — we supply design and the people who intend to use it learn it and build it and fix it with local materials, manpower and expertise. They have much to teach in return for the things we can teach them. In this case I have already learned about the importance of reusing components that are already available and have already been used once in order to keep costs down.