In trying to figure out what I wanted to write for this blog, I figured maybe the best first post would be about me. Something that goes beyond my little paragraph in the “About Me” page of this website. Something that digs deeper into who I am and why I started this blog. Of course the title is sarcastic, but I had to make a blog post on my life sound a little more interesting 🙂
My Family
Dad
I grew up in a family that encouraged curiosity and wonder. My dad growing up would read fantasy novels to me and we would watch movies together. I was exposed to books such as Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings at a pretty young age as well as their movies. Of course my dad also couldn’t let me grow up without watching the classic movies either such as The Sound of Music, The Goonies, and Back to the Future.
My dad also loved working with his hands. He always seemed to have a renovation that he wanted to do on the house or a project to build (and still does) and loved to rope my brother and I into them as well. While I didn’t always enjoy the work, it definitely exposed me to a lot more hands on work than many of my peers have and I’m more well-rounded as a person because of it.
Dad was a substitute teacher until I was 10. He would sometimes come home from his day at work and have a science experiment to show me that he did with his class that day. I loved chemistry when I was younger. It was mostly Oobleck making and baking soda volcanoes, but no matter how many times I made the same thing it still fascinated me.
Mom
My mom was an archaeologist when I was first born. She had initially gone to school for anthropology, but went back to school when we returned to PA and got a degree in epidemiology. You might have heard the term “epidemiology” or “epidemiologist” a lot during 2020 and 2021. My mom specializes in physical activity and its effects on the human body rather than infectious diseases though. I spent my days reading my mom’s old text books she had used to become an archaeologist and watched way too many documentaries on National Geographic, The History Channel, and whatever else I could find.
Grandparents
Finally, there’s my grandparents. We lived closer to my grandparents on my mom’s side of the family for most of my life. In fact, we even lived with them for part of it. My grandma was a math teacher and my grandpa was a professor of statistics. My grandpa especially would discuss mathematical concepts with me ever since I was a little kid, gave me math puzzles to solve, and also was a lover of fantasy and would discuss books with me. He also loved setting up treasure hunts for my younger brother and I to go on. He’d leave clues for us to solve that we’d follow and get a reward at the end. On my dad’s side, my grammy, similar to my dad, would read stories to me and show me older films.
Needless to say, I was lucky to be surrounded by knowledgeable people ever since I was little. They were also people who answered my questions and inspired me to be interested in a wide variety of topics. They weren’t the only ones though.
Education
Elementary School
I have nothing but appreciation and respect for the teachers I’ve had throughout my life. Growing up I was lucky to always have teachers who were very supportive of me.
I remember times when I was in first grade and we had indoor recess and I would go around the classroom with a ruler trying to figure out how it worked and asking my teacher questions. Kinda weird thinking about how there was a time in our lives when we didn’t know how rulers worked.
In fifth grade, my dad got a job at a private school called Falk School. It was free for me to go there because he worked there, so I ended up switching schools. Falk is a place with the most amazing teachers and the goal of teaching students through hands-on experiences and collaboration. In my time there, my teachers were always enthusiastic to answer students’ questions on topics and dive deeper on topics that the students enjoyed. The teachers were always up for a good conversation and even the director and especially the assistant director at the time would humor me – sometimes for up to 2 hours.
FIRST
Falk is also the first place I was exposed to FIRST. FIRST is a program made to inspire kids to participate in STEM and to help build teamwork and leadership skills in students. At Falk we did FIRST LEGO League or FLL where we would build a LEGO robot to complete tasks and earn points. In high school, I then participated in FIRST Robotics Competition or FRC where we would build a much larger robot out of aluminum to compete in a challenge for that year.
My time in FIRST was invaluable to me. I had so many incredible experiences while in it and met so many amazing people. I was able to develop skills in teamwork, leadership, and public speaking with the guidance from my mentors. I also got hands-on experience working with various tools and machines and I gained access to engineers who could help guide me as I attempt to become an engineer myself.
High School
Finally, in high school, I also had incredible teachers. Falk is a K-8 school, so I went back to public school for high school. Even with that, I was still able to work on some incredible projects while there. Such as a virtual escape room during Covid or a trebuchet that could launch up to 60 yards. In classes, many of my teachers also allowed my friends and I to get creative with our projects if we had ideas. This meant that my friends and I did some pretty fun things including making a 15 minute film explaining why we should watch Scott Pilgrim vs the World in film class.
One thing I’ll never forget though is my incredible high school band director, who allowed me to attempt to “fix” the door of the school that led to the stadium. He told me that he’d let me try as long as I never forgot the people who helped me get to where I am when I’m older. I always do my best to remember everyone who’s helped me along the way, even before I made that promise, but one thing’s for sure, I’ll never forget KP.
Why the Blog?
So now you’re sort of caught up on my life and you maybe have a little bit of an idea as to who I am, so why am I doing this blog?
Well two reasons. One is that it gives me another thing to do if I’m ever bored and the other is that I’m hoping that it’s helpful. That maybe there’s a high school senior who’s considering engineering and is lost or has similar questions to that of mine when I was starting to apply to college. I often found that there were questions that I had that when looking it up, there were no answers online for me and sometimes even the people in my life were unsure. Sometimes it’s just nice to know too that people have the same experiences as each other.
If I help even just one person through this blog, then I’ve succeeded – even if maybe that person ends up being me.
End
And that’s all about me. Or a lot about me. More than you probably wanted to know about me. You’re welcome.