Coming into USC my mind was set on one thing, to do good enough in my engineering classes and gain enough experience to get an internship as soon as possible. As a first-semester freshman, I was not able to see further than what I was taught in high school, that internships are the only way to gain real experience. Over …
BMES Conference 2019
For fall break, I attended the annual Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) conference in Philadelphia! Students and researchers from universities across the nation were there to present research and learn about the latest advancements in the field of biomedical engineering. I was there to represent the Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering, a student-run organization that serves the specific needs of the …
Putting the A.I. in Hawaii!
Aloha! This past weekend was one of the best weekends I’ve had in my four years of college. I attended the 2019 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. I attended this conference last year in New Orleans, which was super fun. I had no expectations that this weekend would top that one, but it totally …
San Diego: Beaches and Biotech
A three-day weekend at the beginning of the semester is an ideal time to relax and have fun with friends before everyone gets busy. For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I traveled with a couple friends down to San Diego. One of them lives in San Diego, which meant that we had a place to stay and a car! By …
Why Biomedical Engineering?
Since first arriving at the decision my senior year in high school, I have not changed my mind about majoring in biomedical engineering. Many people will ask what exactly is biomedical engineering. Coming in to college, I did not know even half of what I know now about the major. My definition of biomedical engineering is it is the intersection …
Two Questions, One Answer: USC
The decision of where to spend the next four years of my life was daunting as a senior in high school. These four years were going to be a five-hour plane ride from home. They were supposedly the years of the most critical personal growth and identity-building. College was a time to figure out what I wanted to dedicate the …
Freshman Me vs. Sophomore Me
I am a sophomore who is teaching assistant, otherwise called Freshman Academy Coach, for the engineering course that all freshmen are required to take during their first semester at USC. The purpose of the class is to guide freshmen through their transition to Viterbi and college as a whole. From this experience, I am reminded of all the little details …
It’s back. It’s the Best. It’s Fantasy Football
Shuntaro is a junior studying Chemical Engineering. Lover of nature and Game of Thrones. Click above to find out more.
Freshman Summer: Simulations, Synthesis Reactions, and So-Cal
Hey there everyone! Hope you’ve all been enjoying your time off school, and making the best of your summer! Now that the new school year is right around the corner, I thought it’d be a good time for me to catch you all up on how I spent my past three months, and give you a sense of what a …
“A Little Bit of Everything” Kind of Summer
The summer after my freshman year was a perfect blend of work, travel, and time spent relaxing at home. For the first seven weeks, I resided at USC to work in Professor Zavaleta’s research lab. As mentioned in my last blog post, Professor Z’s lab investigates the use of nanoparticles in detecting tumors with great precision. Every week day, I …
Undergraduate Research (Yes, as a freshman!)
I came into college wanting to be a part of undergraduate research. Entering USC, I had no idea what it meant to do research. I was aiming to try something new and research appeared to be the perfect opportunity to move out of my comfort zone. As a freshman with little to no experience, I was able to secure a …
What it’s actually like to be an undergraduate researcher
That’s my roommate! In high school, dance class was an everyday activity for me . So when I got to college I didn’t know how to keep dancing seeing as my classes revolved around engineering. Luckily for me I had awesome roommates in the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance (check out their website: https://kaufman.usc.edu/) who let me into the studios …
Michelson Center: Research, Kitchens, and More!
In addition to the USC village, the Michelson Center for Convergent Biosciences opened my freshman year! Again, the timing for me to attend USC could not have been better. The purpose of the Michelson Center is to provide a space for researchers of different specialties to come together and collaborate on tackling the most pressing health challenges of our era. …
My Semester Experience in Pictures
Happy Spring Break, everyone! I’m spending this week catching up on some well-deserved rest, but I’m also working hard on my research projects, which you can read about in my last blog post. We’re in the midst of college admissions season, and you might be deciding on where you want to spend the next chapter of your life. To make …
Designing Your Own Research at USC
Hello, friends! First, let me start off by saying that if you haven’t read my recent post about how to obtain research at USC, you should go read that. This post will make much more sense after you have done so. So, my previous research post discussed how to find your own unique qualities you bring to the table in …
Five Factors that led me to USC!
USC was not my dream school; in fact, I didn’t have a dream school. At the beginning of the college application season, I was not entirely sold on engineering being my future, let alone biomedical engineering. But as the decisions started arriving in the month of April, I started visiting college campuses and interacting with students who lived there, trying …
I Can’t Imagine Not Fighting On
It’s true; I really can’t. Just three years ago, I stepped foot onto USC’s campus for the second time, having been admitted to USC. My first time on campus was the summer beforehand. I was competing in an international robotics competition. I remember staying in the Parkside dorms by the main engineering buildings, walking past Tommy Trojan each day to …
Research at USC: How to Get It, Keep It, and Be Rewarded By It
Hello there, research hopefuls! If you are coming to USC interested in research, look no further than this How-To Guide! I’m in the research spirit right now: I’ve been meeting back-to-back with different research partners, comprehending papers on neural networks, and preparing to present some research at the AAAI conference next weekend. So let me splurge my secrets on how …
Redefining the “Lab”: Research in CS
Interested in research but don’t know where to start? Here’s some perspective into what research in computer science looks like at Viterbi! When I was in high school, I thought doing research in a laboratory meant wearing gloves, goggles, and a lab coat while mastering your pipette technique. So when I was a college freshman and I heard people talk …
Free Trip to D.C.! Thanks Viterbi!
A few weeks ago, I capitalized on an awesome opportunity to take a free trip to Washington D.C. with three of my close friends. My flight, housing, and food was covered, all I had to do was agree to represent USC at a conference and attend workshops. The conference is called the Grand Challenges Summit, and it focuses on the …