Hi, my name is Jaden and I am a current student at Duncan College working towards degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Art with a minor in Entrepreneurship. I have been interested in engineering for almost my whole life. From ages 9 to 18 I competed on a couple different robotics teams and gained skills like soldering and CAD design. Therefore when I got into Rice it was clear from the beginning that mechanical engineering was the right path for me. I also decided to pursue entrepreneurship because I like the concept of creating new companies. A couple things I like doing on the side include playing music. I also enjoy listening to music.
So far, I have really enjoyed the experience abroad. On our first day, we went to the Eye Film Museum and did a design sprint where we were tasked with redesigning some of the exhibits for visually impaired people. I thought this exercise was very interesting as it challenged us to put ourselves in the perspective of the visually impaired. Some takeaways I have are that everyone has a different perspective and this causes everyone to see things differently. Understanding this will help people communicate and work together better. We then went on a cheese and wine tasting cruise tour of the canals, which was very fun. Afterwards, we walked around the city, got dinner, and saw a nice sunset.
I am really looking forward to the coming weeks as we are planning to go to Belgium and maybe go to the beach. So far, I have enjoyed the relatively unstructured time after class as my way to enjoy a new city is to just walk around with no plan. I think making plans is the best way to take meaning out of a trip, however they are good for getting somewhere on time. Thank you for reading the blog.