work satisfaction

oops... I realize I missed posting yesterday. Was entirely unintentional.. just completely slipped my mind as it was a busy day. I've been very caught up with lots going on at work this week, plus had a few evening events yesterday so time just escaped me. Will make up for it by writing an extra long post today :)

I haven't mentioned work for awhile here, but the truth is - it's been much better! This fall I've been involved with an educational outreach program that was proposed in one of the grants funding my lab's research. We are developing curriculum for teaching kids about engineering and rehabilitation - specifically focused on "human-machine interfaces". The project has been very ambitious and I was more than a little nervous about it at the beginning - especially because I have no teaching experience whatsoever. But it has been going so well!

More specifically, I've been helping design a 10 week curriculum for a group of 20 students from grades 6-8. This has meant writing up lesson plans, worksheets etc as well as going into the class once a week. to teach concepts including engineering design, computer programming, sensors, and the human nervous system. Sounds intense - but the cool thing is that for all of this, we're using LEGO Mindstorms (an educational robotic based Lego system that has software for computer programming) - and the kids are so excited about it.

Actually, they're excited about everything, not just the Legos. This week they came into the hospital where I work for a field trip and absolutely loved it. We showed them some labs and research techniques that we use for studying parts of the nervous system from the brain to the spinal cord to muscles, and how to use these as tools for rehabilitation. The kids had some fantastic questions and were so eager to participate and learn about everything. And today we brought in actual research equipment that we use in the lab for measuring muscle activity, and they totally rocked taking the measurements for the lab we designed. I was so proud!

It's been tons of work but so much more rewarding than anything else that I've worked on in the past year. Seeing kids get so excited about science and engineering is really inspiring. And watching the learning process is amazing. They struggle through some hard problems but are doing so well... and when I hear things like "well let's just make one change at a time, so that we know which variable makes a difference" or immediately know the answer to math questions about assorted topics or ask great questions like "but why does the signal get bigger if you contract your muscle more?" - it all warms my heart. Ok cheesy but I can't help it!

Reality is that I have thought that this science stuff is really cool for quite awhile. But if I talk about it to friends or family outside the science world I tend to get some funny looks... I guess talking about monkey brains controlling robots, or zapping people to study their reflexes, is a little weird. I have tons of friends who work in the business world, and business is ubiquitous enough that it's not weird for them to talk about work (all the time... not really but feels that way sometimes!). But science is still one of those things that a lot of people view as nerdy. So I don't talk about it very much. And maybe contributes to how fun I find it to share these concepts with kids who are so excited to hear more details. I'm sure that the fact that I loved school helps too, since being in a classroom brings back lots of fond memories. It's also great knowing how many bright kids there are out there... I hope there will be one or two future biomedical engineers in the bunch!

Anyway, so it's been busy, but I am quite happy about it. Still really unsure about where I want my career to head, but for now I'm content to have fun exploring this new role.