(preppy music)
- Hey guys, I'm Ery Zhu,
I'm a sophomore here at Harvard College,
I'm concentrating on Bioengineering,
and I'm from Auckland, New Zealand.
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I think it's really just about, like, taking engineering
tools and skills to build solutions for the human body,
and these solutions can come in the form of
pharmaceutical pills or, like, medical devices.
- So what initially got you interested in this field?
- I have a couple of friends
who worked in the lab before and they told me about
how nice the PI was and how valuable they saw that the
work they were doing was, cos sometimes in undergrad
labs you can be not really contributing to the final project
and not really picking up valuable skills, so I had a lot of
recommendations from friends of mine for this lab,
and I just thought I'd give it a try.
- And how much does the lab work overlap with,
or sort of complement,
the work that you're doing in the classroom?
- It does complement the work I'm doing in the
classroom to a certain extent, but I think it builds on
that a lot more than it complements it.
So for example, that we're using the same language in class
as I'm using in the lab, that I'm doing a lot more complex
things in the lab with it, and with a more focused direction
because I know that what I'm doing in the lab is going to
go towards making these soft robotic devices,
whereas in class it's a lot more like I'm doing the analysis
for the sake of doing this analysis.
- So you're, sort of, applying a lot of the base that you
have in the classroom into more, sort of,
practical application - Yes.
- I did that circularly but, yeah.
(laughs)
So, at Harvard, what does it look like, or what does it mean
to declare a concentration?
- Well, declaring a concentration basically means that
you've chosen to focus most of your studies on this
particular field and you take the number of classes
required to fulfill that concentration, so different
fields have very different numbers of set classes,
but a lot of classes overlap so for example, all of the
life sciences and bioengineering concentrations mean
you have to take certain biology courses like LS 1a,
math courses, and stats courses.
- Okay, gotcha. (sound effect) GOTCHA!
(confident music)
(sound effect) GOTCHA!
Academically have you felt like there's been a shift from
freshman year to sophomore year?
- So a lot of people told me that sophomore year would be
easier and more fun, I haven't really seen that.
For me, sophomore year's definitely a lot more challenging
academically, I spend a lot more time on pieces,
a lot more time at office hours, but hopefully this
will be my most academically challenging year and it's
all downhill from here. - Okay.
(confident music)
- So the bioengineering concentration has 23 required
classes, so after this year I will be taking a lot more
engineering classes and I'll be doing potentially a thesis
or a final project.
- Okay, what do those theses or final projects
tend to look like for people in bioengineering?
- So, for engineering in general the final projects
tend to be on something you've, like, created.
A lot of people do, like, little machines, or like they do
research but then one the labs that halve it,
and that counts as their final project.
Alternatively, they can write a thesis from the research
that they have been doing at a Harvard lab.
(confident music)
- So you came here from
Auckland, New Zealand. - Yes.
- What was that transition like for you?
- It was definitely interesting because I've done
a semester of university in Auckland so I did have
something to compare it to and I realized that
at Harvard there is a lot of hand-holding.
They really want you to love it here,
and to, like, really immerse yourself inside the college
so the transition wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.
- What sort of hand-holding did that look like?
- So when you get onto campus you'll have
a Peer Advising Fellow, you'll have a Proctor,
you'll have an Academic Advisor, and you'll have
and endless series of workshops telling you how
this transition is going to be and things you can do
to make it easier, resources that are available to help
make it easier for you, so definitely, like, if
you need help it's always there.
- Uhum. - It's kind of forced on you.
- Right, so like "here's a lot of help,
because a lot of advising..." do you find a lot of that
advising to be helpful?
- I think I was really lucky in that I was paired
with a great Academic Advisor who really became more
like a friend than an Advisor and it really did
make parts of my freshman year go smoothly.
I also love my Peer Advising Fellow, and he advised
me on more, like, the social aspects of college
and the extracurriculars.
That was just, like, really fun to have both of them
and know that they're there to support me if I
ever needed them.
- What advice would you give to a high school student
going through the admissions process?
- I think, um...
I got given this advice, and at the time I thought
it was completely useless so, you might might also
think it's completely useless, but I think just relax,
like, everything's going to work out.
Once you click submit, don't stress about it,
try not to think about it, and what's gonna happen
is gonna happen.
Don't prepare for what you think college is
going to be like.
So for example, a lot of my friends, while I
was in Auckland, took classes that were similar
to what they were taking at college so that
they could be more academically prepared, but once
you get to college, because there's so much to learn,
having that one little edge, I feel like it
didn't really help that much so I think really
just enjoy being home and spending time with
the people around you.
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