“Working on a project that impacts the real world is a fascinating experience, especially with a diverse group of engineers.

I am currently fortunate enough to be a part of SCOPE, as I work with Amazon Robotics on developing a human interactive rescue system for the supply line at Amazon's supply centers. As both a project manager and software engineer, being able to ideate and bring these plans to fruition is a deeply rewarding and valuable experience.

Collaborating with both experienced industry engineers and motivated students is fun and a critical aspect of my personal and professional growth in today's society.”

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"Since I applied to Olin during the height of the pandemic, I never got to visit the campus or attend Candidates’ Weekend or talk to current students to get a real feel for the community. Saying “Yes” to Olin was sort of a leap into the somewhat-unknown, but I had gathered enough from the glimpses of Olin through my computer screen to know that it was somewhere I wanted to be. My first time stepping foot on Olin’s campus, and in Massachusetts, was move-in day.

It’s interesting that I ended up at Olin. For all of my childhood, I was set on becoming a lawyer—an international space lawyer, to be exact. I’m not even exactly sure how I chose that. It wasn’t until I was messing around with hydroponics during quarantine that I realized that I wanted to work with my hands. I wanted to make tangible, visible, environmental and societal impact (not that lawyers don’t make huge impacts on people’s lives, because they do!). I just never knew quite how to explore that type of career path until I was looking into hydroponic systems and their impacts on the communities around them.

For someone who hadn’t really explored engineering at all before coming to college, Olin has been the perfect place for me to grow. I’ve learned to build circuits and design intricate parts in CAD and code games in Python, all in my first year of college. It’s crazy to think that I didn’t even know what a breadboard was when I started here—that I had never heard of the term “computer-aided design”.

The way that Olin throws you into things makes the fear of failure wither away. From my experiences at Olin, I feel like I can do anything I set my mind to. Accomplishing some things may take longer than others, but I’ve learned that I will always find a way to get it done.

I’m grateful that my stressed 17-year-old self decided to take the leap to come to Olin. It has changed the trajectory of my future — I’ve finally found something that I’m passionate about and can see myself doing 40 years from now: working in the field of clean energy as an electrical engineer!"

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“I remember when I first got on campus two years ago. I was so excited to take on this next part of my life. I knew I had made the right choice coming to Olin as soon as I got to campus. There was a thought that kept nagging at the back of my head though.

“How can I possibly become a full-fledged engineer in just 4 years?”

My first-year experience with Olin Baja answered that question in a massive way. I was shocked when I walked into the first meeting. As a first year, never having done any proper engineering work before, I was immediately trusted to design and fabricate components that would go directly onto the Baja car.

Sure, I was scared initially, heck I didn’t know where to start. However, through Baja was able to connect with peers that were in my position only a year or two earlier. They were there to support and mentor me along the way. I’m incredibly honored that I was able to do the same for the first-years this year as one of the team’s suspension leads.

Baja has been one of the most important parts of my engineering education at Olin. It has been instrumental in growing my confidence, and I’m really looking forward to being an engineer in motorsport when I graduate.”

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"It was the season of Balam Pichkari, my favorite Bollywood song, on repeat and skies dowsed in bright colors to welcome spring. It was Holi! I had always dreamt of celebrating Holi with my college friends and making the memories of a lifetime. In my junior year, I had the chance to lead this effort with the Office of IDEA to share something so close to my heart and bring it to my Olin family.

We hosted an outdoor Holi event in April 2022 and extended the invitation to students, faculty, and staff. This was a chance to celebrate and foster a stronger bond within the Olin community, especially since this was the first large-scale all-community gathering post the pandemic. We even custom designed white t-shirts which by the end of the event were uniquely dyed for each attendee and became a souvenir of this cherished memory! This energetic afternoon spent with my friends made me feel like Olin was truly my home away from home.

With the autonomy of organizing an event at such a large scale and sharing a part of my culture, I felt like an “Oliner” in its truest sense – empowered to make a positive impact in the community.

As I enter my final semester, I am excited to continue hosting more community wide events and learn about the diverse cultures at Olin."

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"I like that Olin provides opportunities to apply engineering and design to real-world problems. I find the teamwork approach fantastic because once you graduate and are working, you're going to have to interact with people all the time. Learning effective communication and teaming skills is part of what sets us apart. 

I found Olin my junior year of high school, when I signed up to go to an Olin information session. When I found out the college had less than 400 people, I actually un-signed up for the information session! I had been picturing going to a mid-sized school, not a microcollege. However, one of my college counselors had heard of the school before and advised me to give it a shot—if I didn’t like the session, no harm done. 

Honestly, attending the session completely changed my mind about the school. I was so impressed and surprised that Olin had such a crazily different take on engineering than any other school I was considering. There also seemed like there was a sense of community and togetherness on campus that felt rare.

When I visited campus, I could see how I would fit right in. I really liked how helpful everyone was, and I could see myself participating in the extracurriculars, doing homework in the unconventional library, and forming close relationships with the other students on campus. I was drawn in by the tight-knit atmosphere on campus; students are in constant contact and collaboration with faculty and staff. I also admired the radically different way the community thought about engineering, taking in more human perspectives and considering the greater consequences of our actions.

My mom also majored in electrical engineering in college, and had brought up sentiments that much of her college experience was highly theoretical (with theory she never used on the job) and that she had to learn how to actually be an engineer and a team member on the fly at her first job. Olin allows students to practice what it’s really like to exist as an engineer in the workplace, from teamwork to application of theory to practical situations. 

Feedback is also hugely important in Olin’s culture and curriculum. Professors take feedback constantly and incorporate it into their courses to improve that semester and future iterations of classes. The dynamic nature of Olin's courses is part of how the college has been able to continue evolving what the engineering curriculum looks like.

The Design Nature play project is a quintessential Olin project that all students take part in their first year. I'd worked on many projects and teams before, but there was an entirely different dynamic than what I was used to in high school. The teaching team gave a lot of scaffolding on how to work as a team and encouraged reflection as the project progressed. These teaming frameworks were new to me, and have been highly valuable to me on projects I’ve done since then. I had a great time working on this project, and have found the design curriculum at Olin instrumental in what sets me apart as an engineer."

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"Hands down some of my favorite memories have been with The MIX. The MIX stands for the Multicultural Innovators eXperience. It is a club on campus that celebrates different cultures and backgrounds and is open to everyone. I have been very fortunate to be able to make memories with the MIX even before I got into Olin. Since my application season was during the pandemic I had a lot of time to look through my emails and read all the love letters that several colleges were placing in my inbox. One day, I saw a new kind of love letter. It was The MIX, telling me to apply to their virtual fly-in program for Olin. Since Olin was already high up on my priority list, I filled out the application immediately. An acceptance love letter, a new Olin hoodie (which I am actually wearing right now), and a zoom link later, there I was hanging out with the MIX on a Sunday evening. Even though we were on zoom, we were still able to make fond memories, arguing and laughing over a drawing game during game night.

For the second day of the fly-in, we were able to sit in on an Olin class. This was when I met one of my favorite Professors, Emily Tow. Being from Cali, Emily’s class was scheduled for 9pm eastern time but 6am pacific time. I had stayed away too late the night before, so I woke up late! I was so worried that Emily was going to be mad at me for showing up late but when I popped into the zoom room she was very happy to see me. Even as I gave her my bad explanation for waking up late, she looked at me very compassionately and told me that it was ok and guided me to a breakout room. Once I was in the breakout room, I was surprised to see just how much fun the Oliners were having with their topic. My favorite was when they were talking about measuring the loss of heat from hot chocolate to determine the speed of wind in a wind tunnel. This was when they introduced me to Transport Phenomena, The Emily Tow class. I couldn’t believe I was late to HER class. As everyone signed off, I stayed behind to excuse my tardy one last time. As I did, I could tell that it was something that did not bother Emily, because there she was with her warm smile and compassionate eyes.

Even though Olin was already high on my list after the MIX fly-in, I knew that Olin was the place where I wanted to be.

Now fast forward, a few years later, here I am at Olin in the Commons! This space is meant to be a hub for several clubs on campus that collaborate with the Office of IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access). The biggest and most frequent club here is the MIX. Now as the MIX co-vice-president, I help run our own game nights and meetings in

this room. Since the Commons was just released this year, we are still designing this space to best capture the different aspects of all the clubs that call this place home. As someone who helped work on it last year and now this year, I can’t wait to see what we create.

(fun fact: I have taken the Emily Tow class, Introduction to Transport Phenomena, just this last semester! It is definitely worth it!)"

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"Acronym has been one of my favorite ways to connect with the Olin community. Acronym is a pop-up coffee shop where students make free coffee and tea for students, faculty, and staff at Olin. I have always loved how Acronym provides a space for the Olin community to slow down and connect.

I joined Acronym my first year at Olin and ended up running it my Junior year. I loved meeting new folks at Olin every week and helping provide such a cool space for gathering and connection. People would often meet to share coffee or do work and would leave their mark by drawing or writing something on a Post-it which then got pushed under the glass surface of the table. Now Acronym has passed into the hands of some awesome students a bit younger than me. I love that they are keeping Acronym alive and making it work for the ever-changing community here."

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