Undergraduate
Student Profiles
Name: Paul Lee
Year: 2005
Major(s): Biomedical Science and Finance
Minor(s):
Hometown: Kokomo, IN
What has been your favorite engineering class and
why?
EAS 345 (Engineering Entrepreneurship) has been my favorite
SEAS class because I have had the opportunity to view the
business world from an engineer’s perspective. Complemented
with Wharton classes in management and finance, this course
really helps to enlighten future entrepreneurs about several
issues that may arise for them in their start-ups.
Professor Cassel, who taught my section, is extremely passionate
about the work that he did with his own start-up company in
the past, so his lectures are always filled with interesting
anecdotal evidence. His experience as an entrepreneur also
gave him insight into some of the management theories that
we discussed in lectures, so the way that he ties together
academic material with real-world applications was amazing.
During my four years at Penn, I have realized that a professor’s
enthusiasm for the course content and for teaching really
makes or breaks a class; Professor Cassel’s unrivaled
dedication to his students has been a huge factor in students’
overwhelming satisfaction with the course.
What do you plan on doing after you graduate from
SEAS? How has SEAS helped prepare you for your career?
Immediately following graduation from Penn, I plan
to go into strategy consulting to gain a broad perspective
on some of the technical and business principles that I learned
as a dual-degree student in SEAS and Wharton. Consulting is
definitely a hot area for SEAS graduates because of the unique
skill set that we gain throughout our four-year educations.
From day one, engineering professors instill the process of
posing, analyzing, and solving problems into our heads; these
are skills that can be transferred and applied to any industry
that we may want to enter after graduation. Knowing how to
“think out of the box” to solve complicated problems
is a highly coveted skill, especially for consultants.
The bioengineering lab sequence has been especially effective
at preparing me for my future career. First, we had to learn
to work with randomly assigned partners for up to 15 hours
per week, so we gained valuable team interaction skills. Second,
the labs are so unstructured that we could really experiment
with whatever we thought was interesting. Finally, troubleshooting
experiments and analyzing noisy data have been great learning
experiences for future coursework; at the same time, these
labs exposed us to real-world situations where results do
not always go according to plan.
How is Penn a diverse place?
Penn is a very diverse place in almost every respect, and
you can see this simply by walking down the heart of campus,
Locust Walk. Especially on a nice spring or autumn day, “the
Walk” is overflowing with students from almost every
ethnic background imaginable walking to and from class. At
the same time, you can really see diversity in student interests
as well. Specifically, representatives from up to thirty different
clubs and organizations line the Walk every day, advertising
a multitude of activities such as a cappella concerts, fine
arts performances, cultural events, and community service
opportunities. It is very difficult for Penn students not
to be able to find the right group for themselves. If, however,
someone cannot find a good fit with any particular club, he
or she can be entrepreneurial and very easily start a new
organization, making sure that it follows his or her vision.
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