A place for everyone

Lorenzo Funk didn’t know what he’d concentrate in when he arrived at Harvard last year, but physics courses eventually steered him towards electrical engineering. Sarah-Rose Odutola arrived on campus interested in physics, but switched to biomedical engineering after taking an introductory life sciences course.

“I learned about the biomedical engineering track here, which is the intersection of physics, chemistry and biology,” Odutola said. “That was so exciting to me.”

Shriman Jha knew he wanted to be an engineer, but it was only through his time with the Harvard College Students for the Exploration and Development of Space and Harvard Undergraduate Automotive Society student organizations that he discovered he wanted to be a mechanical engineer. Ellen Pan realized she wanted to study applied math after her experiences in the Conflux art-technology collective, which applied engineering principles in ways she’d never considered.

“Just being part of these clubs helps a lot,” Jha said. “You get to work on real-world problems, which you don’t always get in classes. I really enjoyed the clubs that I joined, working towards solving a problem. What I really enjoy is working in the machine shop, machining something and actually having a tangible product to show.”

All four students were among the 407 members of the Class of 2027 recently welcomed at Convocation to the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The 407 recently declared students include 177 in computer science (43% of the class), 118 in applied math (29%), and 112 across the engineering disciplines (28%).

“Regardless of what you were planning to pursue, whatever your interests are, I want you all to know that you belong here,” SEAS Dean David Parkes said in his opening remarks. “I want you to know that you can do this, and if you ever have any doubts, we have a community of people to help you. There are a community of people to help you to really succeed in your engineering and applied science concentrations. We believe in you. I believe in you, and we want you all to succeed.”

Parkes’s opening remarks invoked the mantis shrimp, a research topic among several SEAS labs. Rob Wood’s Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory designed a robot to mimic the mantis shrimp’s punch, while the Federico Capasso Group developed a flat lens inspired by the mantis shrimp’s vision.

“These projects highlight our interdisciplinary approach that we take at the school to research and education, and also remind us that solutions can come from unexpected places,” Parkes said.

Convocation was a chance for the newest members of the SEAS community to explore all the different ways to engage, both in and out of the classroom. Following Parkes, peer concentration advisors Bella Pignataro, Trey Whitehead and Sofia Giannuzzi all shared their perspectives on how to find community and succeed.

“One of the most beautiful things about the size of the community is you can have the opportunity to really engage with every other person in your cohort of graduates,” said Pignataro, a fourth-year electrical engineering concentrator. “You can learn an insane amount, not only academically,but also from your professors, your peers, your postdocs. I challenge you all to delve deeper into all these different people and interactions, and I challenge you to understand everyone you meet as people – what are their motives, what drives them, what do they love, why do they love it.”

Following Giannuzzi’s remarks, sophomores packed the Main Atrium of the Science and Engineering Complex, which for many will be their home for the next five semesters. Representatives from SEAS offices, student clubs and organizations were on hand to offer advice and recruit new members, just as they were recruited two years ago.

“I joined Women in Computer Science in my freshman year, and it’s one of the only ways I got to meet people studying my specific concentration,” said Giannuzzi, a computer science peer concentration advisor. “At SEAS, it’s important to have a group of people around you, if only to build your morale during late-night problem sets. The people from these clubs likely need to fill the same requirements that you do, and there’s strength in numbers.”

Clubs not only offer an opportunity to apply coursework in a real-world setting, but they can also explore non-traditional applications. After her experience in Conflux, Pan picked applied math because it can be used in almost any space, from hard sciences to social sciences to art.

“I think of applied mathematicians as problem-solvers, and the world has a lot of problems that need to be solved by people with these really strong technical skills who are able to properly apply them to the areas they are genuinely interested in,” she said.

Brian Chi initially wanted to study economics at Harvard, but soon realized he enjoyed the quantitative aspects of his studies the most. Applied math ultimately offered him the best chance to do that, so that became his concentration, with the goal to focus his coursework on economic applications.

“Applied math is very much a hands-on experience in how you can apply certain theorems or lessons that you learn in lectures into real-life applications, whether it’s sociology, economics or computer science,” Chi said. “From there on you’re able to develop a speciality. It’s one of the very unique experiences that Harvard provides that combines books with the real-world.”