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Meet Tchuck

Tchuck is a white man attending a east coast university and majoring in biomedical engineering. Always a good student, Tchuck attended a STEM academy for high school and took an engineering class in his senior year. Although the focus was on mechanical engineering, he was interested in what he saw and was drawn to his chosen university’s research on blindness and robotic limbs. Tchuck is looking forward to his junior and senior research projects in which he’ll have the opportunity to steer his own projects and designs. As the oldest of four children and the son of an engineer, Tchuck describes his desire to succeed and his enjoyment in knowing how things work as the forces that led to his interest in engineering.

My dad is an engineer, so I was from that young age I had that influence over me, I still do. So that was a big part. So I’m the oldest of four, so I have three other siblings. So I felt like there’s always that pressure to succeed, do well in school and all that stuff. […] I like knowing how things work and all that generic stuff. So yeah I’d say it’s a mix between. I do want to do it and I do like it, but I think also a big part of it was also my dad.

From Tchuck’s first interview.

The image below is a journey map that Tchuck created summarizing some of the highs and lows from his second year as an engineering student.

Tchuck’s second-semester, second-year journey map.

Want to learn more about Tchuck’s journey? Check out his tag here (or by clicking the ‘Tchuck’ tag below) to see quotes from his interviews over the years.

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Tchuck’s Family & Childhood

[91-94; 96-98] My dad is an engineer, so I was from that young age I had that influence over me, I still do. So that was a big part. So I’m the oldest of four, so I have three other siblings. So I felt like there’s always that pressure to succeed, do well in school and all that stuff. […] I like knowing how things work and all that generic stuff. So yeah I’d say it’s a mix between. I do want to do it and I do like it, but I think also a big part of it was also my dad.

[9-11; 28-30; 38-44] …in terms of my academics at least, I always try very hard. I’ve always taken the hardest classes. I was in STEM Academy for my high school… it was everyone that was looking for majors involving science, technology, engineering and math and all that types of stuff, basically you get put in a cohort, to an extent. There was specific trips we were able to go on since we were in the STEM academy. The biggest thing, […] was an agreement they had with […] a local community college, and I got to transfer out, 16 college credits. I just picked whatever class I had, and if I got an A or B in them for the transfer credit I was able to do that, so I got to bring in those into [East coast university].

[58-62; 66-68; 70-72] they just introduced it in my senior year, an engineering class. So obviously I took it, because I was like, “You know, why not? Maybe it will be relevant, maybe it will be interesting.” So I took it, it was all right. It was mostly based on mechanical engineering which like, I’m biomedical engineering, so it’s still useful, I suppose, but I am not as interested in it. It was a good class. We watched […an] open-heart surgery, we got to watch that. So that was kind of interesting to watch. […]. I remember watching it and I found it pretty interesting, cause like I don’t know, I think that stuff is interesting, I don’t care about the blood or anything like that.

[76-78] So, the only thing I didn’t like about [the STEM Academy was], I don’t get to into it, but today nowadays they stress the women in engineering thing, I don’t have a problem with that, except then they have the trips only for women in engineering so I couldn’t even go.

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Tchuck on Choosing Engineering

[15-21] [East coast university] was kind of my back up. But I ended up getting the best worth for my money basically I got a bunch of money from [East coast university] and also [East coast university] has a really good engineering school, like all the schools I applied to had a decent engineering school but [East coast university]’s obviously very good for engineering. So I ended up coming here. I’m in honors college here. I also pledged, I’m also in a fraternity here.

[113-119] When I came to [East coast university] I looked at them and I thought biomedical sounded pretty cool. I went through and they showed me this tour and it was like, I think the people at [East coast university] that do research were looking at something like eyedrops that fix blindness to an extent, there was something about a robotic arm that would be able to perform surgery. So I was like that’s pretty cool. And I did well in bio and I like science and obviously I like math. So that’s what I ended up going with.

[125-127; 130-132] I actually came in under the major engineering entrepreneurship, which initially I applied to that because I was like, alright I’m not 100% sure what I want to do, like I like biomedical, but I wanted to come in as generic […]And what it ended up being was a completely different thing, like it’s what you would think trying to start your own company and make stuff, whatever along those lines. So pretty quickly I transferred into biomed.

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Tchuck’s Quotes #1

[195-201] So basically the idea is to get experience with engineering and all this stuff. What ended up happening was freshman engineering clinic was, it was alright, basically. They talked about a lot of stuff that I already knew. They went over like units and sig figs, conversions, stuff along those lines that wasn’t too difficult. They also went over, we went over engineering ethics which obviously is important so I do appreciate that although that’s been talked about in like every single one of the engineering classes so it gets a little repetitive. Obviously it’s important.

[232-236] And for the second half we had to, we had to use code to optimize a wind turbine and then build it. So we had to figure out what parameters we wanted, what we wanted it to look like, the shape of the blades and all that stuff. And then we built it and tested it at the end. So that I feel like is relevant.

[213-217] I would say the clinic as a whole I’m pretty sure is good. I’m looking forward to junior and senior clinic because that’s when we get like actually research projects. We’re literally going to be doing and making stuff. And I think we work our entire junior year on one thing, and our entire senior year on another thing. So it’ll actually be relevant and something that we get some say in it.

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Tchuck’s Quotes #2

[94-99] This summer I ended up going back to my warehouse job that I’ve been working since senior high school. I’ve already started applying for internships now, and I plan to continue until I eventually land one, and even then, probably still after just to get more options.

[105-121; 124-129; 191-192] This semester I’m taking all biomedical engineering classes: Foundations in Mechanics, Physiological Foundations, and Electro Foundations. Funny enough, all three of the classes are literally in the same classroom, and it’s a three minute walk from my dorm, which is nice. Most of the teachers use the time as a double lecture period, instead of using the period for lab. Like Literally, on most days I end up sitting in that classroom for hours, and literally sometimes I don’t even move. On Friday’s, we have class from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm, and it’s two different classes, but they’re all in the same classroom so we sit there the whole time, which I don’t know, it’s not too bad. But for mech founds, I think I do like this professor the best.

[130-136; 192-193] He’s very, very smart. He basically does most of his examples off the top of his brain. He makes a problem and solves it himself, which he does mess up every now and then, but for the most part he’s pretty good about it and if he does mess up. Literally after class, he’ll go back to his office and solve it and then email us the solution for it, but yeah he’s pretty good. He goes through the problems a little fast. It is complicated topics, but it’s not too bad. I can still follow for the most part, and then if you have any questions, he is always able to answer them. Also, we haven’t done any labs. I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think we’re doing any labs for mech founds.

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Tchuck’s Quotes #3

[143-150] However, I don’t really like my professor in the physiological course. I find him to be a little blunt and a little bit incompetent. He writes all of his stuff on the board that he gets off his PowerPoints for the most part. He spells words wrong all the time, which is not a big deal, but I find it distracting. It’s a little annoying and frustrating. Then, also he’s very rarely able to answer our questions if we have them, or he’ll say “No, that’s too complicated. Don’t worry about it.” Or “Yeah, I don’t really know an answer to that.” On an occasion, he’ll try and BS it, but then I’ll Google it in class, and he’ll be wrong. Or I already know the answer and he’ll be wrong. That’s a little frustrating.

[161-163] When he can’t provide a good explanation, I try and learn whatever’s in the notes for the most part, and then I mean, if something does interest me, I will dig deeper into the topic. I’ll look deeper, because I probably could find most, and if not all answers on Google

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Tchuck’s Quotes #4

[243-249] I had a good experience working with my group on this assignment. We all, funny enough, he did it randomly, but I mean, I know most the people in my class, because we’re all… Like I said, there’s only 30 or 40 of us in the biomedical engineering program. For the most part, I know everyone by at least name, and I’m friendly with most of them, or all of them a little bit at least, but the people I ended up getting grouped with I’m pretty close friends with. It ended up working out. We were fine together and we got everything done. I think the presentation went pretty well. He still hasn’t graded it though

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Tchuck’s Quotes #5

[165-170] In addition to the difficulties with the physiological professor, I also have a problem with the electric and magnetism teacher. He’s this real nice Asian guy. His accent is a little hard to understand sometimes, but I’ve gotten used to it a little bit, but all he does is write his notes on the board off a piece of paper that he has and he does it very quickly. Also, you have to draw a lot of circuits and stuff and it takes a long time to copy down. It’s hard to try and copy it down at the same time as listening to him.

[171-178] I find that makes it a little bit difficult to learn the material. We even had a mid-semester review for him. Some other professor came in and talked to us about what he does good and doesn’t do good in the class. Basically, we all ripped into him a little bit, and he really hasn’t changed anything at all. Except for we have Wednesday labs, which are normally from 12:30 pm to 3:15 pm. We have two periods, tech and a lab period. He would always let us out after the first lab period, and someone suggested during their review that he should keep us for the two periods, because we’re already behind and we don’t know the information that well.

[179-185] Now, that’s what he started to do, but that’s the only thing he took out of the review. However, keeping us for us two periods, instead of one, still really doesn’t help that much, because he still teaches pretty much the same exact way. Honestly, it’s frustrating, because now it takes more time out of my Wednesdays to sit there and copy down more notes that he doesn’t teach very well. I’m definitely going to, once the next exam comes up, I’m definitely going to have to watch a bunch of YouTube videos and Crash Course videos to try and teach myself it

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Tchuck’s Quotes #6

[436-445] Overall, I think that the clinic definitely is helping me feel more like an engineer because the clinic is probably the first real engineering stuff, I guess I’ve done. I mean, I don’t know if it would count as engineering stuff, but it’s research. I’m doing tests and doing experiments. I guess it does count as biomedical engineering, but I think that’s probably the biggest thing that’s made me feel like an engineer, because I’m actually doing testing myself. I’m not really supervised at all. I mean, there’s other people in the lab, but no one’s over my shoulder. No one’s telling me what to do. There’s no teacher. I have to figure it out myself with my lab partner, but yeah, and then I mean, the other classes, it feels like I’m getting through it.

[452-457] Because I understand that I need to know the information presented in class to obviously do the engineering and stuff. I also acknowledge that the way that I’m able to do the research is because the other classes that I’ve had. For example, the chem labs and all that stuff where we learned about safety procedures. You know how to do basic stuff. That’s why I am able to do the research and I do understand that, but I feel like doing the research and being in the lab myself actually makes me feel the most like an engineer

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Tchuck’s Quotes #7

[12] My last semester was really hard.

[102-120] Last fall involved a lot of studying, with a lot of people, I would say. I spent easily the most time in the library last semester than I have my entire college career. Just a matter of studying groups, just being in a quiet […] No, I mean, honestly, it was basically all with groups. Literally, people would just be in the library all the time. So, if you were just trying to study or whatever, people would just probably already be there. Or, we have group chat where you would just text and be like, “Yo, who wants to go to library and study?” And then, people would just show up and, I think that definitely was the biggest thing that got me through that semester. Because, I can study by myself; however, I don’t find it as helpful in my opinion because I like to bounce ideas off other people. I think two heads are better than one. You’re going to be able to figure out, maybe if I’m going to mess this up, okay, maybe you’re actually able to correct me on that. And I mess this up or then you mess this up and I help you on that or whatever. Stuff along those lines. Because I definitely saw that a lot in the group study sessions. And I mean, yeah. I think that’s the biggest thing. And then also, just staying on top of my stuff making sure my work didn’t get out of hand. Obviously, there’s levels of procrastination, I’m going to procrastinate a little bit. This is going to happen, but I just need to make sure that I don’t do it to ridiculous extremes where I’m stressing myself out so bad. I’m also typing up right up to the deadline, stuff along those lines.

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