Interdisciplinary Part 1: FSE 150

During my freshman year, I enrolled in the FSE 150: Grand Challenges for Engineering course. This course provided a personal introduction into the program, by implementing lectures and interactive activities to demonstrate the role of each theme of the Grand Challenge Scholars Program. More specifically, the course was organized into 4 main parts: Sustainability, Joy of Living, Security, and Health. This allowed for me to not only fully understand the content of each theme, but also to be able to research and dive deeper into two of them due to the larger assignments (the Future Solutions Project and the GC Theme Paper) involved. Furthermore, I was able to understand how the future of the course would look like, using the Plan of Study assignment as a basis.

The first theme that was discussed surrounded Sustainability. These first few weeks used 4 main activities to introduce this theme. It began with the discussion of the Play Pumps in Africa, which was a company's stubborn attempt to commercialize the ability to pump water in areas where water collection was immensely tedious. However, the pumps ended up malfunctioning to the point where villages were without water altogether, as the play pumps covered the water sources, demonstrating that while sustainability is essential, it cannot be at the expense of functionality, as regardless in the long run it will provide a negative impact on the environment. The second activity was the discussion surrounded the Seattle climate policy plan, which aimed to take large-scale measures for the city to reduce emissions.  However, this plan faced the issue of finances, as it would require such an extensive amount of money, and thus, this discussion demonstrated that the issue of cost always applies during the development of climate policy, and when making bills, politicians should keep a good medium in mind. The third activity was the Energy economics game, where the class had set up a certain amount of utility companies seeking to buy energy, and a certain amount of energy companies that all had a different source of energy that they produced. The result was that the cleaner sources of energy often were dismissed, as they were often far more expensive, despite the extensive benefits to the environment they would provide, demonstrating that energy companies need to innovate to provide cheaper forms of green energy, as the stake of the planet depends on it.  Finally, the last activity was the study of Ghana and its potential use of sustainable energy initiatives. Ghana's energy demand is on pace to skyrocket with the recent economic and population boom, thus indicating that developing countries need to implement green energy as the base of their power grid for easy adaptation. Overall, these activities helped me realize that despite the necessity for sustainability, the innovation is not rising in accordance with its demand. Several of the solutions provided to modern-day problems often provide issues in other fields, such as economic or political. Thus, when prioritizing sustainability, it is essential to create a good balance, or potentially try to innovate where cost never becomes an issue in the first place. Personally, I see this to be as a potential career, as the demand will always exist due to the necessity of environmental innovation and going over the theme in the class set the stage for it.

(More about Sustainability can be read here)

The second theme that was discussed surrounded Joy of Living. This section used two activities and a guest lecture to explain the theme. The first activity was establishing the business breakdown of a technology such as 5G, identifying stakeholders and the technology's impacts. This activity helped introduce me to the idea of entrepreneurship by explaining the consumer hierarchy to consider when developing and providing a good/service. The second activity was providing solutions to improving in-person learning, to which we identified 3 main processes: anonymous in-class questioning, incentivization, and improving the efficiency of office hours. This activity also furthered my knowledge of understanding how to improve the Joy of Living of consumers, as it is essential for consumers to be happy with the good/service, and to ensure such is true one must dedicate most of the time to tailor it to their needs. Finally, the guest lecture covered the importance of UX in today's world. For example, there is no point in having advanced technology if it isn't easy to use. This lecture helped me understand the importance of UX, as it previously seemed not entirely necessarily, but when taking a closer look, UX is likely the reason that Apple is as successful as it, as it allows for a wider range of consumers. Overall, these activities helped me realize that Joy of Living applies to nearly every industry and service, regardless of profit incentives. Businesses will always need to focus on the Joy of Living for their consumers, and policymakers and politicians need to improve the Joy of Living for the sake of popularity and reelection. I found the focus on the business side of Joy of Living especially interesting, as prioritizing the consumer in such an extensive fashion was something I had not considered. Ultimately, I understand this theme far more, realizing its versatility in terms of demand.

(More about Joy of Living can be read here)

The third theme we went over was Security. This section used two activities and a guest lecture to provide the foundation for the theme. The first activity required teams to create three threat scenarios, detailing the attacker's motivations, methods, resources, and the human assets affected. This activity revealed the incredible number of ways that attackers could approach attacking victims, demonstrating the sky-high need for efficient forms of security. The second activity was roleplaying as different members of American society in 2025, ranging from civilians to the President, during a crisis. What resulted was the immense distrust and hatred that the media spurred, which ultimately pressured the politicians to act fast. This demonstrates that while the media may end up increasing distrust towards the civilians, it ends up forcing those in power to improve the situation of the country quickly. Finally, the guest lecture discussed how Dr. Paulo Shakarian automated the risk analysis process, and then eventually commercialized it, from his experience doing so in the military. This explains how in the real world, the most successful engineers are often multidisciplined in experience, and require different involvement in different fields to truly stand out. Overall, this theme helped me realize the importance of security, not only during a crisis, but for the sake of preventing one in the first place. As the amount of cyberattacks and security threats exponentially increase, the demand for defense also rises with it. I personally plan on selecting security as my GCSP theme, as it maximizes problem solving while also directly protecting the lives of many. Furthermore, these activities helped me truly understand how defense agencies approach security threats in the real-world and help me realize the difficulty and scope of these threats.

(More about Security can be read here)

The final theme discussed in class was Health. This section included a lecture, an interactive lecture, and an activity. The first lecture discussed the professor's multidisciplined background, which ultimately helped him succeed in the molecular biology field, partaking in research that furthered the common understanding of tumor growth. This lecture established the importance of being multidisciplined, as it is essential for one to understand problem-solving in numerous fields to be able to properly tackle today's modern problems. Secondly, the interactive lecture discussed the trend and correlation between income and life expectation. This lecture established that for modern-day healthcare systems to be successful, it is vital that the country's economy does well in order to fund the system. Finally, the activity involved a debate surrounding stem cell technologies, and we had to prepare both Pro and Con sides. I ended up having to argue for the Con, to which my main argument surrounded how stem cells encourage the growth of tumors. This activity helped me understand that biological engineering needs to be far more researched and properly studied before implementing it into healthcare, as playing with biology could have serious ethical implications. Overall, these activities covered a very large scope of the theme of Health and helped me understand it from numerous angles. For example, when addressing improving health, we must consider the range from as little as to one human to full scale nationwide systems. Personally, this makes me far more encouraged to partake in the remarkable growth that the world has gone through, as even in the deepest of recession, people were still able to come out on top. I am already planning to minor in Economics, and this only confirmed my decision, as the ability to impact a country's economy will clearly benefit its health.

(More about Health can be read here)

Finally, this class had two main projects: the Future Solutions Project and the GC Theme Paper. The Future Solutions Project had to be a solution to a problem, assuming that it would use technologies that would one day come to fruition. Our project was an AI companion drone that would act as a friend and form of guidance to aid in consumers' mental health, as numerous studies have demonstrated the positive effects of venting on happiness. The picture above was the poster we used during the presentation of the project, which identifies the entirety of our project in organized sections. This project had a very positive effect on my outlook of the Grand Challenges, as it allowed me to simulate what the engineering process would be like in regard to one of the themes (in this case Joy of Living), by designing a project with group members. Next, the GC Theme Paper analyzed three research projects that dealt with my selected Grand Challenge theme. I selected Security, focusing on terrorism, and went over projects that discussed tackling terrorism through intercepting communications, community policing, and converting military artillery to non-lethal weapons. Overall, this theme paper was probably the most impactful assignment I completed during the course, as it confirmed my desire to pursue Security as my GC theme. I truly enjoyed doing research on terrorism, as it is a topic that has interested me since high school debate, due to its massive implications on the world. Below is the paper, and each demonstrates my further understanding of how society attempts to tackle terrorism.