We have just finished our second week at Babson College and that old cliché persists: time flies.
I really managed to pack a huge amount into this week, though it sometimes left me struggling to focus whilst in class.
I spent all day Tuesday at an MIT conference which I have meticulously documented here on this blog – every concept and project that was presented blew my mind.
On Wednesday, Chris (my flatmate) and I headed to a nearby hacklab or makespace – a members workshop with a variety of equipment and tools where you can work on projects. I learned how to solder, and created a circuit board with a flashing light:
On Thursday I went to the biology equivalent – a biohack lab. It was an open house meetup. I got a tour of the lab from Tim and Dennis, and they are hoping to do a class next month where you can learn to genetically modify E. coli bacteria to glow in the dark as demonstrated below. I met an Austrian biohacker who told me that if you genetically modify without a license in Europe, you can get five years in prison – whereas in America you can do it in your back yard. Talk about encouraging innovation…
Finally, I spent this weekend exploring beautiful Cape Cod by bike, foot and swimming.
1. What do I have to work on the next few days?
I have a some reading to for tomorrow (Monday).
I also need to organise a few meetings for over the week.
2. What went wrong over the past week? What lessons can I learn from that?
- I meditated more over the last week, but think there is room for improvement in both consistency and frequency.
- I have been going to bed quite late almost every night – this has lead to me sometimes being tired and class and struggling to focus. At the same time I feel that when the class is engaging and valuable, I am stimulated enough to stay focused, so I think the other problem is that sometimes there is a lot of waffle in the lectures with the valuable points hidden.
- I found the financial projections section more difficult than I expected – I think it would be useful to become more familiar with that.
3. What went right over the past week? How can I make sure more of that happens?
- I tried out a new technique for lecture note taking wherein you write a blog post during a lecture – I think this has been really successful as
- it is a good way of keeping engaged
- it is an easy way to produce high quality content
- it provides an aide memoire
- I was proactive in attending events, meetups etc – this was rewarded with several good connections and seeing inspiring things.
- I was reasonably time efficient at completing home work assignments despite being very busy.
- I was quite good at networking at the MIT conference – I need to be proactive in this regard at Babson too.
4. How well am I keeping up with all my duties and obligations?
A few personal areas to work on here.
5. What is coming up that I need to be prepared for?
I have a bunch of Scottish project work to do.
I’m considering going to upstate New York next weekend to hike and see fall foliage so I need to research that.
6. What kind of help do I need?
I need to outreach to medical companies in Boston to visit and learn from them.
7. Is everything I’m doing contributing to my advancement towards my goals? What can I do about the stuff that isn’t?
Yes.
8. Am I happy with where I’m at? What would I like to change? What has inspired you this week?
Yes. I need to start thinking about what I want to achieve when I return to Scotland and how to go about that. I need to make more connections around the Boston area.
9. What are my goals for the next week? Month? 90 days?
I didn’t complete several of my goals last week so here they are again:
- contact the hospitals I want to visit
- contact 3 companies that I think are interesting to arrange a meeting/visit.
- complete all pre-reading and reading accumulated from last week
