Mechanical Engineering Senior Uche Osamor
Like many undergraduates
planning to pursue a graduate degree in the
future, I had many questions regarding graduate school. I wasn't well
informed about the various programs available at the graduate level, and
I
did not know if I wanted to obtain a Master's, PhD or venture into
research. My main purpose for participating in the Pre-grad internship
program was to get a better insight into research because I had always
been biased towards the idea of performing long, strenuous experiments
in
an enclosed lab that minimized my interaction with the outside world. I
thought the life of a researcher was boring. In order for my experience
in
this program to be vital and beneficial, with the help of my mentor, I
set
specific goals that I gradually planned to accomplish through the
semester. For example in the field of engineering, problem solving, data
collection, quantitative and analytical skills are important skills that
all upcoming engineers should possess in order to succeed in this field.
Consequently, through my research experience, I made it a priority to
always understand how the results from the various experiments performed
in the lab were interpreted, analyzed through graphical presentation,
compared to expected data, trends and how relevant conclusions were drawn.
Nanotechnology research lab in the Department of Chemical Engineering. I had no prior knowledge on this area but from performing personal research online, I learnt that nanotechnology is expected to result in the next revolutionary advances of the 21st century and it will be used in manufacturing, environmental, medical, information technology, food, energy and many other sectors of the economy. Nanotechnology is basically a term used for applications that work with matter that is so small and invisible to the eye that it only exists in its atomic and molecular size, which is only visible by microscopes with nanometer (10-9 m) resolution. This is a size smaller than one strand of human hair.