During my second semester of senior year, the thing to which I am most looking forward is being able to pursue my hobbies in depth and in breadth, and to just relax. The last seven semesters of high school have been strenuous and exhausting, though that's not to say they haven't been rewarding. For this final semester, I hope to continue learning at school, but also playing my bass more, reading, and traveling. Already, I have had a number of gigs for my Chamber Orchestra, and my Symphony Orchestra will be touring in Amsterdam and Berlin in the summer, so I'm looking forward to getting to spending more time on music. I also have a number of books lined up that I haven't had the chance to read, and I'm excited to have the time to sit down and read them.
In my engineering class, we have just started working on our capstone projects, but are already facing a couple of issues. I'm fortunate to be in a group with two other smart and hard-working students, so I'm not concerned about producing a strong end product. However, we are having difficulty settling on an issue that we would like to tackle. We know that we want work on something related to climate change and larger global problems, so we've jumped between ideas relating to anything from drones for firefighting to reinventing emergency triage procedures. At this point, we have settled on the latter, but I feel as though that may change, and I'm ready to take on any additional work so that we can make our solution as inspiring and effective as possible.
While debating ideas, we've also had to ask ourselves whether we want to make something for profit, or something to benefit others. In our discussion, we've found that solutions that make money are often rather obscure and difficult to think up, and more often than not, anything we think of has already been conceived. Meanwhile, solutions that are for the benefit of society tend to have their own set of challenges which come with working with cities and governments. Of course, I would love to have some extra cash lying around so that I don't have to worry about paying my college tuition, but I know that I will find more gratitude in doing something that benefits others.
In making a product for profit, there is one purpose: to make money. Because of this, the people on the development team tend to be the types of people that think about lives in terms of dollar signs, not in terms of values and experiences. And further, the public tends to see the company as just that: prioritizing money over helping the greater good. In the process of making a product for profit, other aspects of the design process go ignored, and we run into ethical dilemmas, as seen in our "Ethics in Engineering" project.
When designing one for the benefit of other people and of society, I feel that the most valuable "profit" made is the feeling of helping others. Giving a gift is always more rewarding than receiving one, and the same holds true for product design. Often, though, since the goal isn't profit, companies tend to make little money, and so it's necessary that they rely on donations and public funding. This funding is often insufficient, and can lead to sub-par research and development, and therefore an unsuccessful product release and production.
My goal is to make product to help society and better the livelihood of individuals around the world. Specifically, I hope to be able to assist low-income communities, dealing with the manifestations of climate change.