Journal Reflection

At risk of repeating what's been on everyone's mind for the last month, classes during coronavirus suck. Not for any lack of effort on the part of the instructors though. For me, this thought stems from my own inability to manage responsibilities unless they're straight in my face. Having 2,500 miles between me and the classroom puts me in the mindset that my work isn't important, as there's absolutely no visible consequence to my performance, good or bad. My work gets turned in as ones and zeros and my feedback comes back as pixels. I hold neither a test tube nor a paper with a grade.

For the last two weeks, I've blown past countless deadlines with this mindset, promising I'll get on track next week but falling short. Having classes on P/F was a novel relief at first, but I'm beginning to understand why it's a necessary measure, as my performance working from home isn't a sliver of what it is working on campus. The extreme degree of involvement required by 20.109 certainly isn't conducive to this mindset, so I'll have to man up soon.

Many people here also seem to be commenting on their feelings of being a biological engineer in a time when our field is front and center on the global stage. Personally, I find it interesting to see the field move faster than I've ever seen it. It's amazing to see papers come out only weeks after research was started, rather than years. It frustrates me that our skillsets are impotently wasting away behind computer screens, when we're some of the most qualified people to be doing the delicate labwork required to get through this crisis. This frustration is compounded by my parents asking why I don't contact labs at the big universities in my state to see if I can work there; I can't seem to communicate the point that the university we PAY has kicked us out, so why would we be welcome elsewhere?

I'm sure my thoughts and experiences are far from unique, and far from a complete account of my feelings at that.

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