A Bittersweet Goodbye

Posted on by Ben Zaltsman

4 weeks after leaving home for the faraway foreign land of Gothenburg I left the now familiar faraway land of Gothenburg for the next destination of my summer travels, Israel.

Now, one week later, it’s time to look back and reflect on my time in Gothenburg. It was quite surreal when the program came to an end. While each day of the trip felt long because of the 9-12 hours of work of a day, the overall trip felt very short.

Let us start with what I felt were the shortcomings of both the courses and myself. First, ENGI 355. I had some knowledge of Fusion 360 coming in (from ENGI 210) so I was excited to build upon that knowledge. Although I found that it was not particularly helpful at first I was excited about the CAM  lesson so that I could build on those skills. So when that lesson was cut from the curriculum I was disappointed but I understand the need for it. I instead of knowledge deeper knowledge on everything else and Dr. Wettergreen offered to teach us that material during the fall semester as a workshop (which I plan on doing). Obviously waking up each morning very early was tough but when you combine 2 15-week courses into a single month then the days are bound to be long. My main (and only real) complaint is the disorganization of the program. Coming in no one really knew what to expect so finding out that we would not just be prototyping but working on-site was really exciting. However, finding out that we would miss the final week was upsetting and when it came time to leave with the project not done. I think knowing what I was getting into would have made me much more comfortable (I would’ve brought Claritin, work shirts, and bug spray) both physically and mentally. My personal shortcomings are that I’m not really sure I followed the EDP as closely as I would in the OEDK due to the lack of constant supervision and the time crunch. So it felt as if I was not always making the optimal decision and sometimes like we were just winging it.

Using winging it as a transition, let’s discuss the successes of the programs. I think the main one was the realness of ENGI 200. Students tend to be a little coddled in the classroom. Everyone is looking over your shoulder and helping you all of the time. But in this project, failure was not only a concept but also a very real possibility. The fear was very real and I think the possibility of failure really pressed us to be great. I also now think the knowledge I gained from ENGI 355 will allow me to fill in the gaps from the CAM lesson on my own. I think there are two other portions that were incredible. The leadership roles and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Working as the project manager was a really great experience. Gravel came in on my day unexpectedly and it was a blessing in disguise. Having to work so impromptu was a growing experience. I also think I took to the role quite naturally and although there was not any major conflict (which I’m not saying I would have liked but it would have also been a great growth opportunity) I still think I worked everything out quickly and well. The system of gravel movement that I had established stayed until the very end of the project.

Interdisciplinary collaboration had a tendency to frustrate me. This was well known by the rest of the Rice students. The architects had really creative ideas but a lot of the time they were not reasonable from an engineering perspective. The real kicker was the stakeholder representative, who would come in every few days and tell us to completely change our design. I think again this was a positive, as she prepared me to have a boss or an actual client who would come in every so often and change everything I worked on and it would be a 1 step forward, 2 steps back situation. I found I could use knowledge from my previous designs to help in the current ones. Especially from the creative aspect where I felt that I struggled.

To summarise, this experience on it’s own would have been fantastic. But once you take into account the friends that I made, from the summer workers to the Chalmerists to the Rice students and the oppurtunity to spend a month abroad learning about another culture and everything that comes with that. This experience was nothing short of a major point in my life so far.

Signing off one last time,

Ben

P.S. 66% done with the EDES minor! Let’s go!

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