Ethical Issues in my Profession:
The company I researched, CapitalBio, was one company that ethics very obviously affected. As the biochip technology is able to diagnose more and more illnesses and determine a patient’s resistance to various treatments, the company has a variety of issues to consider. For instance, the company might want to develop this technology cheaply in order to distribute to poorer consumers or countries. In addition, the company has to make sure the biochips accurately and consistently diagnose the illnesses; failure to do so could affect lives not only in China, but internationally. At Tsinghua Solar, similar ethical issues could be considered: how to distribute solar water heaters to poorer, rural residents while still turning a profit. In addition, all four companies we visited could evaluate their methods for creating their products, making the methods more environmentally friendly to continue to reduce pollution in China, increasing quality of life.
Educational Breadth as Professional Development:
While I am learning various engineering concepts and methods in the next three or so years of my undergraduate education, I want to take classes in several different fields, possibly including Chinese language. Based on my experiences freshman year and in the Plus3 program, even a seemingly unrelated topic can provide unique insight into an engineering problem. For example, in my Engineering Applications for Society class, my team designed a commuting trail in a poor section of Pittsburgh, and my Cities in Historical Perspective class gave me a new way of looking at the community we were placing the trail through. Similarly, my interactions with students in China will help me think of other perspectives when I am designing things or working internationally as an engineer.
Lifelong Learning:
This trip to China showed me the importance of traveling to experience different cultures. Though I had read a book about the social, political, and economic changes in China in the past 20 years before going on the Plus3 trip, the trip was able to give me insight into everyday Chinese life that I had not been able to get from the book. This trip has compelled me to investigate topics about Chinese culture, like the Taoism religion and comparisons of different provinces, that I had not thought about before traveling to China. This trip has set an example for international travel throughout the rest of my life: I want to prepare for the trip by reading culturally relevant books, immerse myself in the culture of the new country (including eating the sometimes strange food), and continue to investigate various aspects of life in the country after I return.
Social Environment:
When I started interacting with people in China, I was surprised to learn that they really weren’t all that different from Americans, just like much of the city of Beijing looked similar to American cities. This is probably due to the increased globalization in the past couple of decades – Chinese students now have greater access to news from other countries via the Internet. However, based on Claudia’s lectures, some of the social environment related to school studies is very different. Chinese high school students seem to be far more dedicated (or even obsessed) with studying for their college entrance exams for years before the exam, while Americans tend to study only a few months in advance for the SAT, and it is by no means the hardest test many of them will take. Overall, though, Chinese students have similar social gatherings to Americans – in the district we stayed in, there were a variety of restaurants, coffee shops, and bars that students seemed to spend time in.
Functioning on a Multi-Disciplinary Team:
The most important part of functioning in a multi-disciplinary team is learning enough about the other disciplines to be able to communicate with the entire group. In my team, sometimes one of us would say something like “Oh, this is an engineering (or business) thing – you should handle it.” In reality, someone working in a multi-disciplinary team should have a base knowledge of all of the fields while using detailed insight in his own field. Our work in teams during Plus3 did give me a glimpse into issues that are important in business, but I actually found Claudia’s lectures about economics more helpful. These classes gave me non-American insight into economic problems (both historical and present-day) that helped give me a more well-rounded view of basic economics.