As I finish up my final quarter at Stanford and look ahead to a job outside of engineering, I’m forced to grapple with the fact that I may never use the technical skills developed over my last four years in the MS&E department. The tedious note taking, the time spent Read more…
The world around us is incredibly complex. From social and political issues, to technological innovations, very few parts of our lives remain simple or easy to understand. It would be hard for one person to understand enough of the world around them to function completely on their own, but luckily Read more…
I came to Stanford planning on pursuing neuroscience or bioengineering. I did neuroscience research on neurodegenerative disorders in high school, specifically Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and saw myself as an M.D. Ph.D. practicing and researching translational medicine. I quickly learned during my first quarters that I enjoyed chemistry, was easily bored, Read more…
It’s never too late to figure out what your passions are. And it’s also never too late to figure out how engineering can help tackle these passions. I always had a feeling that I wanted to do engineering ever since I arrived to college. I loved building, designing, and experimenting, Read more…
Mention the word “sales” and countless engineers frown, scoff or shrivel. And it is not their fault. Sales triggers many images in our minds, many of which are not positive — think the sleazy used car salesman, or the sleek guy in a suit trying to sell your parents a Read more…
Like many others, taking ME203: Design and Manufacturing was my first introduction to making refined products. Sure I had modified plate steel with a hacksaw and drill to add something on to my Jeep, or screwed together some wood pieces to make equipment for my garage gym, but these were Read more…
After sitting in on CS 107 as a pre-frosh (naively thinking it was Stanford’s intro CS course), I thought majoring in CS would mean learning about compilers, multi-threading and all the other jargon they threw at us the first day. And while I certainly learned all those things (and more), Read more…
I have always had a profound interest in international relations—I suppose that my involvement with the Model United Nations program during my Middle School and High School years was fundamental in this regard. Therefore, although I decided to pursue an engineering degree at Stanford, I wanted to find an avenue Read more…
As the countdown to graduation began, I, like many other Stanford seniors, was eager to fulfill my general education requirements, referred to as Ways of Thinking/Ways of Doing, or just Ways for short. My last unfulfilled Ways was Engaging Diversity, thus, as I began to plan my Fall Quarter, I Read more…
As the sun set over downtown Johannesburg, igniting the sky above the soaring Vodacom tower, I wondered what it meant to be part of a struggle utterly foreign yet intimately familiar. To know that even in the region of the world as far as physically possible from home, the fundamental Read more…
Throughout the spring and summer of 2015, I was living in Germany through Stanford’s study abroad program. In those six months, I was able to immerse myself in German culture, practice the language, and gain a new sense of confidence and independence. I spent Spring Quarter in Berlin, living in Read more…
My junior year, I stumbled upon the Global Engineering Program. I hadn’t heard of the program until I received an email the day before the application due date, but I was immediately excited. In addition to international internships, the Global Engineering Program organizes Summer Engineering and Technology Study Tours (SETS), Read more…
This past spring quarter I studied abroad at Oxford University, and it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of my experience, and over three months I bonded with new friends, furthered my academic studies, and expanded my cultural horizons. My best Read more…
Hi guys! My name is Vikram Prasad, and I’m a senior majoring and co-terming in Electrical Engineering. That said, coming into Stanford, I wasn’t totally sure that engineering was for me. It seemed intimidating in how much time the coursework took, but also in the number of paths I could Read more…
Before I came to Stanford, I knew two things: that I loved to write, and that I loved to film. Pencil in hand, I crafted a vast diversity of literary works, ranging from creative nonfiction to screenplay writing. One day, I would be exploring a new plot twist for my Read more…
Last summer, I got to intern with Appirits, a web services company located in Tokyo, Japan. Aside from doing typical web stuff, they also have a department dedicated to making online games, known as the Appirits Game Project. Most of their games are browser-only, and nearly all are Japanese-exclusive. However, Read more…
Having long thought my future career would be in scientific research, I participated in the Stanford Chemical Engineering Department’s summer research program last summer under Dr. Gerald Fuller. I had never done research at Stanford and my high school research had been pretty rudimentary and guided, so I was excited Read more…
When I arrived in Florence last year, I had a rough plan of the classes I would take: some Italian, some art history … and a materials science class (with recorded lectures) that would fulfill an “engineering fundamentals” requirement for my computer science degree—or maybe an online CS course through Read more…
Currently, I’m working on a project to apply network analysis and machine learning to road networks of California. Our goal is to evaluate the road networks in terms of accessibility and efficiency, and then come up with alternative solutions to improve on these road networks or even create new ones. Read more…
If you asked me four years ago what I wanted to study in college, computer science would not have been on my list. Too afraid was I of entering a field that so many have started exploring seemingly since their kindergarten days. It also did not appeal to my inner Read more…