engsci: an introduction

I’m Amanda and I’ll be your Part II blogger for Engineering Science this year >:)

Lemme just introduce myself a bit more real quick:

1. I think pochacco is the best sanrio character (see fig 1.)
2. I love dying my hair different colours (its a coping mechanism)
3. i intentionally type all lowercase but imma be flipping between proper capitalization and not :3
4. i will be taking this blog as kind of a casual (one-way T^T) conversation so be prepared for informalities!
5. I use a lot. of brackets : D

This post will just be a quick rundown on my personal experience for the first month-ish in engsci as someone who (basically) went into the spec knowing barely anyone or anything.

ABBREVIATIONS I USE:

engsci: Engineering Science

bme: Biomedical Engineering

compsys: Computer Systems Engineering

spec: Engineering Specialisation(s)

why did i chose engsci???

To be very honest, I kind of stumbled into choosing Engineering Science. I am a very all or nothing person so I had to make up my mind before submitting my choices at the end of Part I. My dilemma really boils down to two reasons:

1. My favourite Part 1 courses were ENGSCI111 and ENGSCI131
2. The age-old process of elimination

Basically after I identified what subjects I liked, I was down to three options: compsys (which was ruled out almost immediately after, because absolutely not, 101 almost killed me), software and engsci. I kind of backed out of software (the GPA requirement very much scared me), but I also didn’t want to be caged into having to code for the rest of my life with no way out and having to give up touching grass (psa: no harm to software engineers tho they’re all super smart and slay but its just not for me). Anyway, by the end of this, I kind of ended up with engsci as my first (and kind of only) choice so… I guess it was a sign that I got in. [still didn’t really know what engsci was about or meant but I’ll cover that very in depth in another blog so stay tuned! (or go and find it…if you are reading this after I’ve posted the other one)].

Pro tip: If you’re feeling indecisive, you can always ask people in Part 2-4, they can usually give a good summary of each spec and maybe even give good suggestions as to which spec suits you!

some crumbs about the trip :3

So I’m sure you have heard of the Engineering Science / BME field trip floating around. Maybe you even used it as rationale to choose engsci (I definitely did). Whatever you think about it, I’m sure you would like to know more about the trip (right?). I’m gonna give you a few tips about the trip without giving too many spoilers 😛

First things first; this trip is like a tradition for all engsci/bme (except for the covid children sorry), and has been around for ages ever since there was like 20 people in the cohort. No other specialisations get to do this, so take that how you will. I think its the main reason why engsci has such a close cohort and it’s one of my favourite things about this specialisation (the closeness of the cohort not the field trip but that’s a close second).

It is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity; marketed as an educational trip but to be honest, you make more friends than learn any industry skills. (which is arguably the more important skill anyways because networking is your best friend). My advice? Make as many friends as you can because you don’t know when you will need (or regret not making) that connection. Plus, nobody ever complained about knowing too many people!

my class experience

As mentioned before, I went into this spec with 0 of my close friends (absolute bummer). But hey, I am no sheep and I wasn’t about to do a whole diff spec when I definitely did not want to, just because my friends did (even if I did contemplate it). As a result, the first week or two consisted of me feeling a bit alone- all the people I used to go to class with would still be sleeping in when I had a 9am or be in a lab when I wanted to eat lunch. Honestly, the one thing that forced me to get closer with other engscis is the field trip (so yea that’s why I am heavily endorsing the make-friend-part of the trip). And it was so worth it, we all became a lovely(?) little group and suffered through 233 labs together (which is also a whole other course I will give my two cents about in another blog).

Lemme tell you, assignments and such become much less scary when you have people around you who are also in the same boat (even if the boat is sinking with all of you in it). Plus, you get to chill and study with these people during breaks between classes- classes that you will all be taking in semester one.

Okay but despite my horrible attempts at jokes I hope you got some good knowledge from this blog (and also the ones to come yea). If you have any questions you can always message me on linkedin or just come up to me at uni- as of this writing I have bright purple (engineering!) hair. I’m always happy to help another engineering student in need B).

And with that concludes the first engsci blog post of 2023,

go forth and slay

amanda <3