(As a note, I am SO sorry for not having posted this earlier! I could have sworn I posted it, but I guess it was just sitting in my drafts for a long time.)
Hi, my name is Paul Paterson and I’m a freshman honors student majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a double minor in Physics & Astronomy as well as Computer Science. The following picture is one of my friends and I at the Bubble Cafe downtown. I am the front left person.
1. As an engineering student, science is one of the most important fields in my studies, along with math and pure engineering. In addition, the depth to which science can explain the world around us has always fascinated me. Science also shows us how little we know about many things, while providing the tools to learn everything about them. I took 4 AP science classes in high school (Chemistry, Computer Science A, Physics C – Mechanics, and Physics C – Electricity and Magnetism) and numerous honors classes in scientific disciplines. My personal favorites were my two AP Physics and my Honors Robotics courses, as they solidified my desire to work in engineering, specifically aerospace engineering (which is simply a sub-type of mechanical engineering). This is my only pure science course this semester, but I will likely be taking several more in the future.
2. Through this course, I hope to advance my knowledge of biology and be able to apply that knowledge to projects not directed related to biology at all. Recent developments in robotics, computing, structural and mechanical engineering, and more have been increasingly based upon principles found in nature. We have so much to learn from the world around us here on Earth that can help us get to places beyond our home, such as our moon and Mars, and I hope to learn how to utilize that untapped potential.
3. The projects that interest me most are probably the watershed visit (because I can learn about the engineering behind it) and the visit to Clarke Central (because I grew up in this area and would be interested to see how it is affected by the things we will learn about in this class). In addition, these activities would give us the experience and knowledge to further teach our communities about biology.