- #1
Raphael Smith
- 6
- 0
Hello all,
My name is Raphal, and I'm 17 years old. I intend to enter college this August, and until a few weeks ago, was fairly certain that I would enter college to study physical therapy; however, recently I have been doing a fair amount of research about engineering. Particularly Biomedical engineering, Nanotechnology engineering, and Aerospace engineering.
Because I am fast approaching the point where I must choose whether I will enter college to study engineering or physical therapy, I would greatly appreciate any future advice that you offer.
Here's what interests me about in physical therapy:
The things I don't like about physical therapy include:
So basically, all-in-all, physical therapy is still a very attractive option to me. Very few negatives at all, but I can't help but be attracted to engineering as well. As far as biomedical engineering goes, the idea of increasing the ability of prosthetics and amputees to integrate more smoothly and at higher level seems really great. I'd love to be able to help people (particularly people who've been injured from vehicle accidents, in combat, and from crime) regain as much back of their lost limbs/body parts as current knowledge permits. It's hard for me to imagine being without a leg or arm, but hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people lose them every year. I'd love to be a part of getting our engineering capacity to the extent where amputees could get arms, legs, hands, even ears, eyes, and facial structure back with up to 80% of the functionality that they used to have. Blind people could see again, deaf people could hear, and those born with physical defects could live a normal life!
This ties in with my attraction to nanotechnology too. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) nanotechnology seems to be the future of developing a life-like synthetic flesh. If we developed advanced and life-like and functional prosthetics/body parts, then we could use the synthetic tissue to remove most external traces of the injury. I think this is already being done to a certain extent in burn victims (which is awesome!) but not to the extent that I envision.
Another side of nanotechnology that is attractive is all the influence it has on everything! I was just watching a video about a nanotechnology engineer working on a paint-like substance that would (theoretically) take advantage of the process of photosynthesis in plants and allow for people to generate (using solar power) electricity by applying this substance to a metal surface and then exposing the metal surface to the sunlight. If this was created and it was affordable, think of the possibilities in the poor parts of the world. People in the hot places with little to no electricity like South Africa or the middle East could have air conditioning and electricity for better medical treatments of the local diseases! Think of the possibilities for people everywhere!
Another fascinating engineering career for me is Aerospace Engineering. I'd absolutely love to be a part of getting a close-to permanent colony on Mars, making space shuttles that would make that possible, and developing more fuel efficient and maneuverable aircraft. It reminds me of the Nazi aircraft that was theorized to have been built during WWII by German scientists and Komler. I think it was called "The Bell" and was able to hover by electromagnetic resistance (if memory serves me). I believe that this concept has almost been proven to be impractical and impossible for today's uses, but even if this particular option isn't possible, I'd still love to try to do something similar. I can't imagine that the most advanced form of aircraft possible will rely on a forward-backward engine capacity/rocket-like source of acceleration.
The last thing about engineering that interests me is developing body armor for soldiers. I hate hearing about so many soldiers losing limbs and being killed. It always seems like the military is always increasing the power of the weapons and not the armor. It seems to me that the only reason we need to worry about killing our enemies fast is because they may kill us first. That problem goes away, though, if they can't injure us at all, or very minimally. I'd love to be part of making a really powerful, but flexible (almost organic) light weight piece of body armor that would protect soldiers and people from I.E.D.'s, projectiles, and most common explosions. If I could do that, I'd use the same technology to develop air-droppable defensive position bunkers. I read in a Science magazine a few months ago (it could have been an old magazine, though) that scientists were developing a bullet proof wallpaper. I thought that was awesome, but if we could use that technology to create a bunker that could withstand rockets and explosions, we could air drop bunkers and defensive structures wherever we needed to. That would surely help our soldiers stay alive.
As a side note, I greatly enjoy learning, and am now pursuing excellence and extreme fluency in Algebra, Trig, Calculus (all types) and beyond. I love learning as long as the teaching is alive and not simply a flat stream of disconnected facts. My philosophy is that everything, from algebra to biology has a connection. Everything fits together to form the truth about how the physical universe operates.
So, I know that ultimately the choice will be up to me and that I'll just have to follow my heart, but keeping what I've written in mind, what kind of engineering career do you think would fit me best? Please keep in mind job security, salary, and the future of the career.
Thank you very much for making this far in my far too lengthy first post. I hope that it was at least a little entertaining.
Respectfully,
Raphael
My name is Raphal, and I'm 17 years old. I intend to enter college this August, and until a few weeks ago, was fairly certain that I would enter college to study physical therapy; however, recently I have been doing a fair amount of research about engineering. Particularly Biomedical engineering, Nanotechnology engineering, and Aerospace engineering.
Because I am fast approaching the point where I must choose whether I will enter college to study engineering or physical therapy, I would greatly appreciate any future advice that you offer.
Here's what interests me about in physical therapy:
- The ability to help people recover from injuries
- The work schedule and type of activity
- The (hopeful) close work with athletes
- The comfortable salary and job security (listed as top job of 2009 and in the top 5 of 2010 by the sources I read from)
- The exciting knowledge about how the human body works and how it can be helped to function better
- The satisfaction of seeing my patients walking out of the clinic healed and ready for business
The things I don't like about physical therapy include:
- Seeing an endless line of people with basically the same conditions requiring almost the exact same treatment each time, lack of variety
So basically, all-in-all, physical therapy is still a very attractive option to me. Very few negatives at all, but I can't help but be attracted to engineering as well. As far as biomedical engineering goes, the idea of increasing the ability of prosthetics and amputees to integrate more smoothly and at higher level seems really great. I'd love to be able to help people (particularly people who've been injured from vehicle accidents, in combat, and from crime) regain as much back of their lost limbs/body parts as current knowledge permits. It's hard for me to imagine being without a leg or arm, but hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people lose them every year. I'd love to be a part of getting our engineering capacity to the extent where amputees could get arms, legs, hands, even ears, eyes, and facial structure back with up to 80% of the functionality that they used to have. Blind people could see again, deaf people could hear, and those born with physical defects could live a normal life!
This ties in with my attraction to nanotechnology too. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) nanotechnology seems to be the future of developing a life-like synthetic flesh. If we developed advanced and life-like and functional prosthetics/body parts, then we could use the synthetic tissue to remove most external traces of the injury. I think this is already being done to a certain extent in burn victims (which is awesome!) but not to the extent that I envision.
Another side of nanotechnology that is attractive is all the influence it has on everything! I was just watching a video about a nanotechnology engineer working on a paint-like substance that would (theoretically) take advantage of the process of photosynthesis in plants and allow for people to generate (using solar power) electricity by applying this substance to a metal surface and then exposing the metal surface to the sunlight. If this was created and it was affordable, think of the possibilities in the poor parts of the world. People in the hot places with little to no electricity like South Africa or the middle East could have air conditioning and electricity for better medical treatments of the local diseases! Think of the possibilities for people everywhere!
Another fascinating engineering career for me is Aerospace Engineering. I'd absolutely love to be a part of getting a close-to permanent colony on Mars, making space shuttles that would make that possible, and developing more fuel efficient and maneuverable aircraft. It reminds me of the Nazi aircraft that was theorized to have been built during WWII by German scientists and Komler. I think it was called "The Bell" and was able to hover by electromagnetic resistance (if memory serves me). I believe that this concept has almost been proven to be impractical and impossible for today's uses, but even if this particular option isn't possible, I'd still love to try to do something similar. I can't imagine that the most advanced form of aircraft possible will rely on a forward-backward engine capacity/rocket-like source of acceleration.
The last thing about engineering that interests me is developing body armor for soldiers. I hate hearing about so many soldiers losing limbs and being killed. It always seems like the military is always increasing the power of the weapons and not the armor. It seems to me that the only reason we need to worry about killing our enemies fast is because they may kill us first. That problem goes away, though, if they can't injure us at all, or very minimally. I'd love to be part of making a really powerful, but flexible (almost organic) light weight piece of body armor that would protect soldiers and people from I.E.D.'s, projectiles, and most common explosions. If I could do that, I'd use the same technology to develop air-droppable defensive position bunkers. I read in a Science magazine a few months ago (it could have been an old magazine, though) that scientists were developing a bullet proof wallpaper. I thought that was awesome, but if we could use that technology to create a bunker that could withstand rockets and explosions, we could air drop bunkers and defensive structures wherever we needed to. That would surely help our soldiers stay alive.
As a side note, I greatly enjoy learning, and am now pursuing excellence and extreme fluency in Algebra, Trig, Calculus (all types) and beyond. I love learning as long as the teaching is alive and not simply a flat stream of disconnected facts. My philosophy is that everything, from algebra to biology has a connection. Everything fits together to form the truth about how the physical universe operates.
So, I know that ultimately the choice will be up to me and that I'll just have to follow my heart, but keeping what I've written in mind, what kind of engineering career do you think would fit me best? Please keep in mind job security, salary, and the future of the career.
Thank you very much for making this far in my far too lengthy first post. I hope that it was at least a little entertaining.
Respectfully,
Raphael