Week Two and Then Some...

Wm. DiamoIn my previous posting, I mentioned my teammates of Gary, Alex and Nick.  The stories of how Nick and Alex came to B.U. as bio-medical engineering students are as different as their personalities.They have recently been appointed senior undergraduate teaching fellows. They will be teaching a freshmen photonics class in the fall.(I'm thinking of registering for the class) Gary and I defer to Gary and Nick...as we are "cling-ons" in their lab for the summer. Each of our roles are not defined. There is no road map to becoming an effective team. Clearly, however, their is an unspoken roll reversal: Gary and I are students in someone else's classroom. Nick and Alex are the teachers. At times, it is a challenging, slightly complicated, somewhat delicate arrangement as we slowly morph into a team. I wouldn't say, however, we're a highly functioning team as yet. Team development is a process; one which at times can be frustrating and putting the team in a dim light with Prof. Altug. A case in point occurred late last Friday afternoon with Dr.Altug. Only Alex and I were available. Prof. Altug needed updates on specific assignments to the team given two weeks earlier. As the meeting progressed, so did our responses of, "...it's in development", "...I'm not sure", "...someone else did that." Prof. Altug wasn't happy. I was mortified. It  was a scenario I feared would come days earlier, but couldn't do much about. While processing the meeting, what came to mind was the 1945 vignette of Abbott & Costello, "Who's On First...? Click below, to get a sense of our meeting with Dr. Altug. But first, here is the team line up:

           Nick Dunn ~ Undergraduate Teaching Fellow

"During my junior and senior year of high school, I travelled into the Bronx from my home in Westchester to the Albert Einstein Medical Center. I worked with a bio-engineering team on diabetes."

"I got serious about high school when I was a senior. I enrolled  in advanced courses even though I hadn't taken the  pre-requisites."

                                      Alex Winters ~ Undergraduate Teaching Fellow                                             

 

          Gary Smith

Science Department Chair

 St. John's Preparatory School

Danvers, MA

                                                                                                                                                        

Rick Comeau

Wm. Diamond Middle School

Lexington, MA

      

                                 

What it Felt Like During the First Two Weeks of RET...