Introduction

This experience, which was also one of my experiential learning experiences, is something that I have been doing for a little over a year and a half, part-time, outside of school. At Monod, I work on the engineering team, where we are developing a diagnostic medical device. Through this experience, I have been able to build my skills, both on the technical side and the social/business side. By including it in my portfolio, I hope to show my journey as a college student and how I got to where I am, highlighting the experiences along the way that shaped me. Below is my initial submission, and later my reflection, for this experience in my experiential learning portal.

Project Description

Summarize your proposed experiential learning activity, including the primary focus of your activity and whatever tasks or actions it entails.

In this activity, I will be helping design, manufacture, and assemble a handheld device to enable the detection of disease-indicating proteins. This entails creating electrical schematics and block diagrams, integrating microprocessors into a custom-designed PCB with support for touchscreens, serial communication, motor/pump control, various sensors/switches, and IoT functionality, designing and creating product mock-ups, renders, and animations for business/investor demonstrations and promotions. I will also manage budgets, build quotes, work with vendors to purchase critical manufacturing tools and equipment, and help prototype and manufacture tools and equipment used in the protein production and purification process.

This experience is largely research based in that it involves exploring techniques and technologies at the forefront of the biotech field. My colleagues and I are not only building tools to make this exploration possible, but are conducting research ourselves, through designing experiments to describe and test different phenomena and to help streamline the process. This work not only meets the definition of research, but embodies several of the core values of the Honors Program. The work I do directly helps advance the fight against deadly diseases and makes testing more affordable and accessible.

I have always been passionate about startups. I love the startup energy and the feeling of always innovating. Through this experience, I hope to apply the skills I have learned in class and extracurricular activities to a concrete project with real-world applications. Not only do I think this experience will help me use the skills and knowledge that I already have, but I hope that I will be able to build new ones in a hands-on project-based environment. I also hope that by being so deeply immersed in startup culture, I will be able to grow professionally and build skills that will be invaluable in the future.

What tangible skills or experience do you hope to grow during this activity? How does this activity connect to your coursework? How does it speak to your educational, professional, or personal goals?

On a literal level, the work I do relies heavily on my engineering coursework - on a day-to-day basis, I work closely with digital and analog circuits, building, designing, and testing systems. The coursework I have taken in the past and the coursework I am taking right now is heavily tied to these fields. However, in a broader sense, my education outside of engineering, especially including honors coursework, is also quite relevant. The worldview and perspective I have gained through these courses have helped me grow professionally and academically, and I try to incorporate this perspective into my work.

My hope is that my work in this internship will help further the company by accelerating its research and development. However, I also hope that I will be able to leave a lasting impact in an intellectual sense. By bringing a unique set of skills and knowledge and applying a certain mindset to problem-solving, I want to help think of new solutions to problems that can be incorporated into the product and will hopefully make it to market. So far, I have helped find new solutions to problems that weren't apparent at first and I have been able to apply skills that I didn't expect to be useful in order to help advance the goals of the company.

Reflection

My time at Monod Bio has been one of my life's most fun and educating experiences. The engineering team has been massively supportive and helpful in helping me build my skills and discover things in a hands-on manner. Though I started with small projects, I was able to quickly scale up my responsibility to work on larger projects that had a noticeable impact. The projects I worked on allowed me to take the skills that I learned in my classes and apply them to real-world examples, and I was also able to dive deep into a variety of areas that I had limited knowledge about, and develop a better, more thorough understanding of them.

The team that I worked with, both in terms of the smaller engineering team and the company as a whole, has been super supportive and welcoming. Being the first intern at the company, I was unsure at times what my experience would be like, but everyone has been nothing but helpful and approachable, and I have been able to form connections with many amazing people. My team, and specifically my manager, have been able to strike a great balance between challenging me and giving me an adequate amount of "breathing room" to explore and experiment, while also being available to assist and help troubleshoot any problems I may have.

Working at a biotech company specifically has been a great experience, because not only am I building valuable technical skills, but I feel like the work I do has a meaningful impact on working towards solving a serious issue. Knowing that our product could help save countless lives is a great feeling. In addition, I have been able to learn a lot about the world of medicine and biology from the many talented and experienced scientists on our team.

In addition to building technical skills specific to engineering, I have also been able to build skills in networking and professionalism, and have been able to pick up skills in product/project management, user research, product design, and startup leadership from observing and talking to others. I think that my experience with Monod has only made me more certain that I would like to work at a startup in the future, as I have been able to observe just how much impact I can have and how agile and dynamic the company is. Though I am leaving for the summer, the past 9 months have been a blast and I would love to return in the future.