Biomedical Engineering - Interview with Karnavaal Al-Rubayie

Join us as we jump into the world of Biomedical engineering! Hear how engineering concepts can be applied to the field of medicine to help push research forward, develop new devices, and find solutions to some of the toughest problems in medicine. Our current student, Karnavaal talks about her experiences here at Cornell being a first generation college student, and first generation Arab American. She talks about how her journey to Cornell was a bit different than others, and how she hopes to help people in this field from bench to bedside. Scott and I discuss the best time to visit campus, and what the difference is between early decision and regular decision. 

https://www.bme.cornell.edu/bme
https://visit.engineering.cornell.edu/

Transcript

Episode Intro:

Teri:

Hi, I'm Teri Carey and welcome to VIEW, Voices of Incredible Engineering Women. Are you interested in math and science? Are you curious about the world? Are you an engineer? Well, maybe you don't know yet! The world of engineering is huge and we want girls to be included in the future of it. So grab a cup of coffee, get your curiosity going and listen in as we talk to real women studying engineering at Cornell.

We hope you enjoy our view.

Introduction Segment

Teri:

Hey everyone! Welcome to VIEW. Imagine this, you’re in a lab and you see a scientist observing human heart cells beating under a microscope, in another area a doctor is working on the mechanics of a prosthetic arm, and then you notice people growing skin, liver and bone tissues in petri dishes. 

Is this Dr. Frankenstein’s lab? No - this is a Biomedical Engineering lab. And while this sounds like science fiction, these are actually things happening in biomedical engineering labs all over the world and they are in fact helping people. Biomedical engineering or BME is taking applications of engineering from other fields like chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineering and applying it to the medical field to solve problems in healthcare. And it may seem like this is a small sector of engineering, but in reality it is quite large - after earning a degree in biomedical engineering you can go on to medical school and become a doctor or surgeon, you can design medical devices, enter the field of tissue engineering, drug delivery, genetic engineering, or even engineer a patient’s own T-cells to fight cancer. It is really a great entry point to a broad future in research, medicine and healthcare. Here is another example imagine being able to artificially grow an organ in a lab. Incredible right? But even beyond that, what if that artificial organ can be used to test new drugs, simulate regeneration potential, or help physicians practice surgeries. Advances in science can happen without testing on real people or animals because you engineered the organ yourself! Or maybe we want to try and improve the success rate of surgeries by creating precise methods during operations. Mechanical engineering and computer science principles can be applied to create robot assisted surgery. Diagnostics, vaccine development, even 3-D printing can all be applied to biomedical engineering. Take for example Julielynn Wong. She has spent her career trying to make medicine more accessible to the world’s most underserved populations. She designed a solar-powered 3D printer system so small that it can fit in a carry-on bag. This made it possible for medical supplies to be printed in hard-to-reach areas around the globe or even in space. Speaking of space, Judy Sullivan was a biomedical engineer that worked for NASA in the 1960s.  She was the first  woman engineer in Spacecraft Operations.  She helped Neil Armstrong get into his iconic space suit for the Apollo 11 launch. Her role was to be sure the devices in the suit were doing their job to monitor the astronaut’s health and safety.  The suit observed heart rates, took electrocardiograms, and kept track of respiration rates and depths. She was able to work with the mission physician to analyze the medical data coming in from the suit and ensure that the astronauts were ok during their testing here on earth and while walking on the moon.  

Another woman making a difference in the early days of biomedical engineering was Thelma Estrin.  She was one of the pioneering women in this field and one of the first people to apply computer technology to healthcare and medical research. In the 1960s Estrin realized that computers could be used to do things like mapping the brain, or digitizing electrical impulses in the nervous system, recognizing the value in bringing computers and healthcare together.  But that wasn’t the only contribution she had to this field. In addition, Thelma was an advocate for bringing more women into engineering. She even brought it into her work, publishing papers with strategies and methods to help bring more women into the industry and retain them in the field. She organized workshops and helped to teach leadership skills to women to help propel them forward into engineering careers.  She was also a founding member of the Biomedical Engineering Society. Her ability to see the potential computers could have on the medical field shaped the future of healthcare and beyond that, she helped bring women to the table of engineering.  And here at Cornell Dr. Marjolein van der Meulen is working on the interface of mechanical engineering and biology to study how forces and loads in the skeletal system impacts bone health and disease. Her research helps us understand how the body heals from musculoskeletal injuries, and could lead to innovative medical interventions to improve healing of broken bones and treat diseases like osteoporosis and arthritis.

To end this little intro I thought this episode was a good opportunity to look at some statistics when it comes to engineering degrees awarded in the United States, and specifically how it is broken down by gender. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there were 145,041 engineering degrees awarded to students in the U.S. in 2021. Of those students, only 33,310 were female which represents 22% of the total engineering degrees awarded. We obviously have a long way to go there in getting that number up to gender parity, but breaking it down a bit further and looking at biomedical engineering specifically, we do have some hope and some interesting data.  There were 8,379 bachelors degrees awarded to students in 2021 in BME, and 4,320 of those were females which is actually 52% of that population. This is really exciting because it means women are seeing themselves represented, there are role models there, pathways and recognition that women are not only welcomed in this field, but belong. And one of those amazing women working her way towards a bachelors degree in biomedical engineering is our next current student, Karnavaal.

Student interview:

Teri

Hey Karnavaal, how are you doing?

Karnavaal 

Doing great, how are you?

Teri 

I'm doing really well. Thank you so much for coming and talking to us here. We're really excited to have you. Can you introduce yourself?

Karnavaal 

Yeah, my name is Karnavaal. I'm a senior, so class of 2024. I'm originally from Rochester, New York, and happy Dragon Day!

Teri 

Yes, it's Dragon Day. Can you tell everyone what Dragon Day is? It's kind of a unique Cornell holiday.

Karnavaal 

Yeah, I would definitely say it's pretty unique. So there's always been this kind of rivalry between the architecture school and the engineers. And so every year the architecture students and the engineers work on creating this kind of like, like working animated dragon and Phoenix. And the dragon is from the architecture school. So they're the first years. And then the Phoenix is the engineering schools. And so the dragon marches to the engineering quad and meets the phoenix and it's like a march and everybody enjoys and it's just fun to see everybody's creativity.

Teri 

It's very fun. It's really neat. It's kind of like a parade. They parade across campus. And then they kind of meet and it is a friendly rivalry, right? 

Karnavaal 

Definitely friendly.

Teri

It's all good spirited. Everyone's excited and happy. And it's right before spring break. So people are able to kind of relax after this. But it's really a really neat tradition. If you can go online and search for different Dragon Day photos, you can see old dragons and phoenixes. It's really neat. So, can you tell me a little bit about how engineering came into your life? When did you start getting interested in engineering?

Karnavaal 

So I didn't really have anybody growing up that was an engineer. Engineering was a really foreign topic to me, I would say probably until high school when I took a class called, like it was called Biomedical Interventions and Innovations. And during this class, she kind of talked about biomedical engineering and I was really interested in about like what it was and how it helped people. And so I started searching engineering and I looked into mechanical engineering and biomaterial engineering and all of these different types of fields that I could go into. And I just decided to do biomedical engineering because it just aligned with my passions and what I wanted to do in the future. So not nothing crazy, but I think it was very gradual and based on my passions.

Teri 

Hahaha Yeah, yeah, so you found something you were interested in and seeing that engineering isn't just one thing. I always see that with students is like, you think civil engineering is what engineering is or mechanical engineering is what engineering is, but then you see that there's actually a lot of different fields. And for you, biomedical engineering was the one that spoke to you.

Karnavaal 

Yeah, absolutely. I think that for biomedical engineering, there's just so many different avenues. And we take classes in other engineering disciplines. So it's not like you stay in your own bubble. That's the thing I love about engineering. It's not just you. It's like a group of people, a team of people with different experiences coming together to make a single thing.

Teri 

Yeah, and we try to really showcase that with the collaboration and even just looking at Dragon Day, right, that's a great example. It's all these people coming together and making this thing and they're all from different parts of engineering, it's really neat.

Karnavaal 

Exactly. And you see that like all the time throughout Cornell, not just Dragon Day, but yeah, that's great.

Teri 

Yeah, absolutely. Like the project teams, the research, everything. It's such a wonderful hallmark of our program is that we have that collaboration and teamwork. So tell me about your journey to Cornell. How did you find us? I know that you're from New York, so you probably heard of Cornell. But tell me a little bit about how that came about and why you applied.

Karnavaal 

So this is a story I love to tell because I think I'm a very non-traditional student when it comes to applying to colleges. So I'm a first generation college student and also a first generation Arab American. And so coming to Cornell or going to college wasn't really something that I understood the process of really. I just thought it was like a next step in your career after high school. Like it's just middle school, high school, college. I didn't know that there was different colleges. And so it really wasn't until I went to middle school that I learned what colleges were, and especially what an Ivy League was. Like I remember specifically in seventh grade, one of my friends, who is actually at Cornell with me too, she was like, I want to go to Harvard. And I was like, what's that? Like, what is an Ivy? And so I think that really began my journey of exploring what I wanted to do with my life and where I wanted to go to college. And so. In eighth grade, they made us write an essay in Home and Careers about like where you want to go to school. And I wrote, I want to go to Cornell because it's two hours away. They have a track program and I was really into track at that point. Not anymore, unfortunately. But then I kind of like introduced the idea to my parents and I was like, listen, this is a university I want to go to. It's amazing. It has all these things. And they were like, where did you say it was again? And I was like, it's like in Ithaca, it's only two hours away. Like you can come get me whenever you want. And they were kind of very, very hesitant about letting me even explore the idea of going to college away from Rochester or our community. I think coming from like the Arab Americans, specifically the community that I was raised in, it was very difficult for a woman to kind of leave their home besides like getting married. It wasn't really something that happened in my community. And so my parents were very like, please don't do this. Like, we want to like protect you. And so eventually I came into ninth grade, things started to get really serious. And I convinced my parents to let me do this program called EYH at Cornell. And it was to kind of like inspire students to go into engineering and STEM. It was a one day program. I took my mom, we came here, she saw the school. She saw how excited and passionate I was. I remember I held like a human brain in my hand, like from the psychology department. 

Teri 

That's an experience, that's unique.

Karnavaal

Yes, definitely I still have pictures from it. I like look back at it all the time. And since ninth grade until senior year of high school, I had a conversation with my parents almost every single week to try to convince them to just let me apply. Just let me see if I can actually get in.

Teri 

Yeah.

Karnavaal 

So senior year came around. My parents were kind of like, listen, we don't want to feel like we stopped you from reaching your potential. You can apply. And I heard that and I really ran with it. I was like, you know what? I know I wanna come to Cornell. I'm gonna do early decision. It's binding. If I get in, I go to Cornell or I don't go anywhere else. And so I applied and...

Teri 

Yeah.

Karnavaal 

I waited, my parents made me wait two hours before I opened my letter and I recorded it, of course. And as soon as I saw congratulations, I started crying and it was such a bitter sweet moment. 

Teri 

Why did they make you wait the two hours? What was going on in those two hours?

Karnavaal

They were grocery shopping and they were like, listen, you need to eat.

Teri

Okay, yep, that's important, yep.

Karnavaal 

And it was such a bittersweet moment for me because as soon as I got in, I was like, wow, now I have to face the backlash of my community and I have to hear like what they have to say about the decisions my parents and I made. And I think it was a huge sacrifice on my parents' part to really allow me to, you know, reach my full potential and support me, because I know it was hard for them and it's still hard for them today.

Teri 

Yeah, I, yeah, thinking about that, that moment for so many people is so joyous and exciting. And like, you just know, this is great. Everyone's gonna love this. But for you to have that other layer of, wait a second, like for me, I'm very excited, but now there's another level to this that not everyone else faces. And I give your parents so much credit. And I'm sure, I know you said you did as well, but like, for, saying, okay, for my daughter, I want to make sure that she goes where she wants to go. I want to make sure that she has the tools that she wants to have. And Cornell is where her heart is. And that must have been definitely another layer on it. And I appreciate you sharing that story because not everyone has the woohoo, oh my goodness, this is amazing. And while that was there, right? That was there. You're totally thrilled.

Karnavaal 

Absolutely, absolutely.

Teri 

there's another layer to it. And people face that. There are other layers. Thank you for sharing that. That's a really unique story. And good for other people to have that perspective with. So you get in, early decision, you know you're coming here. And you're able to enroll in Cornell and you're here and you're a biomedical engineering major. Can you tell me about why you chose biomedical engineering. I know you had a class in it, but what else lent you to thinking like biomedical engineering is for you?

Karnavaal 

Absolutely. So I'll give you a little snippet of like my why Cornell Engineering essay that I wrote. 

Teri 

Oh cool!

Karnavaal

So I knew I wanted to be a doctor since I was six years old. I had a lab coat. I was wearing it everywhere. I was giving people like my little cards and made them call me doctor. All the way until high school, I didn't realize that you had to go through four years of undergrad before you became a doctor and you had to do pre-med.

Teri 

Mm-hmm.

Karnavaal 

And so I knew I really wanted to help people. I wanted to treat people. And I took a class called, like I mentioned before, Biomedical Innovations and Interventions. And I learned about biomedical engineering. And then further than that, I also did a summer program at the University of Rochester called STEP, where I did research on nanoparticles and their progression into medicine. And I realized that. And I also shadowed a whole bunch of doctors there also. And I really realized that doctors are really there for their patients, and they can help solve problems for them. But they're very limited in what they can do, because they're not actually making the solution. And I mean that in a very general term, because what I found was that as a doctor, you see a lot of patients that you can't help.

Teri

Mm-hmm.

Karnavaal

And that was a part that really stuck with me. I wanted to make something. I wanted to develop something to help the patients that I knew were suffering with these diseases. And so that's where I really found biomedical engineering to be a point where I felt like I could make a difference. Because in biomedical engineering, I was actually part of the solution. I could actually make the devices and make the medications that people were taking in these hospitals. Um, and so I decided, you know what, let me do biomedical engineering. And I specifically wanted to do drug delivery. And I know there's a lot of people that switch like when they go into college, but for me, that passion has lasted me, um, from high school until now. And I think it will stay with me forever. Um, but yeah.

Teri 

I love the fact that you looked at this and you were like, okay, so doctors are helping people. I want to help people. But the doctors, you're right, they are limited in some capacity because they can only offer what's already there, whereas an engineer is creating something new to help solve those problems and create those solutions. And you as a young woman to figure that out and to see that, I think is... Awesome. That's so cool to be able to be like, wait a second. No, I want to be the engineer behind that. I want to be the one that says, here is the solution to that problem. I don't think everyone realizes that. Not everyone sees the engineering behind it. They see doctor, they see medicine, and healthcare with that. But there are engineers there, and they are all solving those problems. And you talked about drug delivery. Can you tell me a little bit more about what drug delivery is in biomedical engineering and what you actually are focusing on?

Karnavaal 

Absolutely. So biomedical engineering is very generally the application of engineering approaches to better human health. And within biomedical engineering, there's kind of four different concentrations. So there's biomaterials and drug delivery, which is what I'm doing, biomechanics and mechanical biology, biomedical imaging and instrumentation, and molecular, cellular, and systems engineering. So within drug delivery, you really focus on almost mimicking human biological processes to take advantage of them and then use them to your advantage and actually create a medication from them. So we design tools such as CAR T therapies, which are for cancer or different types of nanoparticles for drug delivery. Specifically, I can give you an example. Right now I'm doing research in the Putnam lab which is working on using outer membrane vesicles, which are from E. coli, and we're harnessing those vesicles to make nanoparticles and then deliver a vaccine with them. So it's all very connected, and you try to mimic your natural human processes as much as you can, because those are going to be the things that are going to be the most effective.

Teri 

Awesome. That's really neat. That's really cool. And the little layers within biomedical engineering too, right, we're breaking it down so much further than just biomedical engineering. No, there's still a lot to biomedical engineering that you can dive into. So can you tell me a little bit, you talked about your research, can you tell me a little bit more about your classes and what you're learning here at Cornell, your lab experiences, any other ways that you're learning through BME?

Karnavaal 

Absolutely. I think the classes that I've taken here have been so interesting and versatile while also being challenging and making me think of new approaches to a problem. I've taken classes such as Introduction to Drug Delivery Systems, Neurotechnology, Cellular Biomaterial Interactions, Cancer and Immunology, but also of course, traditional engineering classes like math physics and statics. Almost every single one of our BME classes also has a lab attached to it where we have hands-on activities to supplement teaching. In these labs, I've made an EKG, I've performed a version of CRISPR, I've made an organoid and tested different treatments on it. Just recently, I measured crawfish muscle signals. And I think that what Cornell does really well is it focuses on taking engineering principles outside of the classroom and teaching us how to apply our knowledge and work together to solve problems. For example, we have a seminar class that focuses on talking about ethics and biomedical engineering, new problems to solve. They also bring in faculty to discuss their research and their journey through BME because not all of them started within BME. 

Teri 

Mm-hmm.

KarnavaalAnd I think the faculty here are very well known and they have a very deep understanding of their field and their passionate about what they do. And I think that really shows within the classes that they teach here.

Teri 

Yeah, and you're showcasing that. I can feel your passion coming off of what you're talking about, and I love it. I can just see that you're so passionate. There's no other word for it. You've just got this real drive for this field, and I'm glad that you found it. So what other things are you involved in here at Cornell Beyond Academics? What other co-curriculars do you participate in?

Karnavaal 

So we spend so much time on campus because you're living here, you're doing everything here. It's really important to go just beyond the classroom. And Cornell has so many different organizations that when I came here, like the first week of freshman year, I sat down and I went through our campus groups, which has the list of all the organizations. And I just wrote down every single one that I thought I would be interested in and I went to their meetings and I just stuck with the ones that I was most passionate about. So I'll tell you a couple of the ones that I'm doing that I stuck with throughout my four years. 

Teri 

Sure.

Karnavaal

So the first one was Cornell Debut, which is one of the biomedical engineering project teams. So it's a two-year process. And the first year, you come up with different areas where we can focus on and where there's biomedical engineering developmental need. And the second year, we actually make that device. So this year, we're working on lead testing in wells and also Parkinson's cane, like a Parkinson's cane for people to use. I'm also the president of the Biomedical Engineering Society, which aims to bridge students in BME together and help showcase what type of future they can have within the field. I'm also the president of Engineers in Medicine, and I'm a part of the Students of Organ Donation Advocacy and the Steminist Movement, which is to help encourage young women to go into engineering and STEM fields. It was very important for me to continue to drive younger people to go into the field that I'm in. And some like very non-academic ones that I'm in. So I'm in Global Tea Club, which is basically just tasting like different tea, and just learning about the history and culture. Actually, I took a class called like the I think it was the history of tea. And during class, we just drank tea and talked about like, what is this beverage that we're like, it's the second most consumed beverage in the world. Yeah.

Teri

Lovely. Oh my gosh. That's, I haven't heard of that class and I love that you took that.

Karnavaal 

Mm-hmm. I'm also an origami club, 

Teri

Cool!

Karnavaal

which is very random, but it's very fun. It's a great way to relax. And I'm also a part of MECA, which is the Muslim Student Org on campus. And that really just focuses, there's so, there's around 600 Muslims on campus. And it's just a great way to connect with the community here. So yeah.

Teri

Wow, okay, so let's back up. So you obviously bring your passion for BME into your other co-curriculars by being a part of, you know, the Biomedical Engineering Society. And I even love the organ donation advocacy group that you show, because like, you can see your BME in that, right? You can see your passion is still there for it, but you're bringing it to like this really great cause and this greater good. So combine that with, you know, going with this this tea club that you have and the classes that you're taking and origami, and then also connecting with your community. I love that you have showcased so many different ways to be involved at Cornell and to showcase your own community, your own background, and being able to reach an arm out to other young women in the STEMinist group. It's phenomenal. Just phenomenal. I love this. I don't know how you have that many hours in the day, but you're obviously making an impact.

Karnavaal 

I think you really learn to balance.

Teri

Yeah. Now that I know all of these things that you have been involved in here, what does your future look like? What do you want to do with BME in the future after you are done here at Cornell?

Karnavaal 

Absolutely. So I actually have one more semester here, besides like this senior spring that I'm in. So I'm actually part of the Early Admit MNGS, which is a great program and I really like want people to look into this program because you get your master's in like basically half a year, which is amazing. 

Teri 

Mm-hmm.

Karnavaal

But during biomedical engineering, I know I told you about how I wanted to be a doctor when I was young and I still really had the passion of like seeing the patients and the people that I was going to help. And I always came back to that and it never really left me. So it kind of made me want to see like, what can I do with this? And so I decided that the best way to really drive my passions and make the biggest impact that I could was doing a program called MD-PhD. So this is an eight year program and it combines like traditional medical school with getting your doctorate in whatever it is you like. Specifically, I would like to do biomedical engineering or something like pharmacology or something like that. And I think that it's a great way to do this thing called bench to bedside. And what that is, is basically taking the research that you do within a lab and taking it outside the lab to treat patients and to treat people. And so over the summer, for two summers now, I've done the Mayo Clinic SURF program, which is a research program for students interested in getting a PhD or MD PhD. And I worked with Dr. Hassan, who is a nephrologist, but he also has a lab that focuses on making medications for patients with chronic kidney diseases. And so after shadowing him and working on this medication for two years, I really saw the importance of having this role within medicine. And also as an engineer bringing in that kind of like circular thinking and problem solving within medicine. And I think there's a huge gap between knowledge and between application. And that's the gap that I'm aiming to fill.

Teri 

Wow, I am in awe of you, truly. Just like your ability to connect things and bring people together, whether it's in science or not, it's so important to have you in a community. And I love that thought of bench to bedside. I think that's powerful. Just in those two words of you're bringing that together, you're bringing together the research, the science, the...application of it to the actual bedside of the patient. And that's what you saw. You saw that there was a gap there. I think the field of medicine is very lucky to have you. And I'm really happy that you are the future of this because you see things I think that other people don't see and that's really awesome. So I'm just really glad, really glad that you're a part of this community. 

Karnavaal

Thank you

Teri

So you have all of these plans. You have a lot of stuff going on campus, academics, all the things. Who is your support? Who is the person that you call when you're like, this is hard or you need a pep talk? Who's that person that you are able to rely on?

Karnavaal 

Absolutely. So going from high school to college is a very unique experience. And especially going from a public school to a private Ivy League institution, I think you have many challenging experiences, especially and shocks, the first year of school. And so I really had to rely on my parents and I would call them all the time, every day.

Teri 

Mm-hmm.

Karnavaal 

And they would just assure me, listen, Karnavaal, like, you want this. There are a lot of smart people, but there are not a lot of people that are passionate and want to change the world. So no matter what, just remember that. And I think that stuck with me for the past four years. There will always be someone more intelligent than you, but you can always be the person that's the most passionate and the most willing to sacrifice in order to achieve the goals that you want to see in the world.

Teri 

You have some awesome parents, very, really awesome parents on all the levels, you know, for them being able to, um, to really let you be who you are in so many ways, um, I think is really incredible. And, uh, they raised a really wonderful, um, daughter. Um, and, and so speaking of that, can you tell me about your experience being a woman in engineering? Um, and I think you have a unique story to tell in this with your community. But I'd love to hear about your experience, both in your community, but also here at Cornell.

Karnavaal 

So we are very fortunate at Cornell to have almost a 50-50 ratio of men to women. So within the classroom, you don't really feel like you're alone. There's always somebody else. There's always many other people, in fact, with you. But I think the most challenging part was probably my community, because not only was engineering a foreign thing to me, when I first told my parents, they were like, are you sure you want to go into engineering? That's a very manly field.

Teri 

Hmm.

Karnavaal 

And I think that's the perspective of a lot of people, not just within the Arab community, but just the US and globally. And I think that being at Cornell is a bubble sometimes because it is so wonderful within the support that they have and the networks that they have for women and people and minorities, especially within engineering. But I think that stepping outside, Cornell and within the work field is really where I feel like I can make the most difference because I have such a unique perspective. But what I want to say is this, what women and women of color bring to Cornell is their perspective. You need to be a, like, you need to have a seat at this table because there are so many things within biomedical engineering specifically where we make devices but we don't think about the people actually using them sometimes. For example, I always like to mention like pulse ox. Like pulse oxes, we found that like don't really work that well on people with darker skin tones. And that could have been solved very early in the process if we had somebody that was at the table making these decisions. 

Teri 

Mm hmm.

Karnavaal

So I think here especially, we're always taught to be leaders within our field and to be mature and take the risk in order to better help, not just within actually creating the devices, but within where they're going.

Teri 

Yes, making those connections. And again, I think that's where you shine is you're bringing these, these things together and showing those gaps and indicating like, Hey, this is not how everyone sees this, not everyone is going to find this useful or helpful. We need to make sure that all of these perspectives are shown. And like you said, have a seat at the table. Um, all right, to wrap this up, which I have loved this conversation, um, but to wrap it up, can you tell me your view of engineering, biomedical engineering, and why should girls explore this field?

Karnavaal 

One simple phrase I think kind of really wraps us up is, if not you, then who? If it's not you making the change you want to see in the world, then who will it be? And sometimes, especially as a woman, if we take a risk and we fail, that's seen as kind of a negative for us. And it's very hard to make these risks, but I want to challenge every single person listening to this to take that risk and to really see, even if you fail, did that change you and how did that impact you? And I think also we have a slogan in engineering, which is to break the rules. And sometimes you really need to do that in order to explore the world and make what you want out of it. So yeah, if not you, then who? And please, when you reach the place that you wanna be, like you said, reach a handout to the younger generation because I've never felt more fulfilled here than when I... mentored students in middle school and high school and taught them what engineering, medicine, and especially education can do to empower them.

Teri 

Wow, great advice, great thoughts. I am so impressed by you. And I'm so incredibly grateful that you're in this community and that you gave us some of your time, because I think what you have to say is very valuable and important for girls to hear. So thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. And best of luck in your future. Not that you need it. There is no luck needed for you. You're going to make everything happen.

Karnavaal 

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. This was a wonderful experience and I hope that I inspired anybody who listened to this.

Teri 

You inspired me, man. Like our future is gonna be okay, cause Karnavaal is in it. So thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Karnavaal 

Cool, Thank you.

Admissions Segment:

Teri 

Hi Scott, how are you doing?

Scott 

Hey, Teri, it's good to see you again. I'm good.

Teri

Good to see you too. So this is kind of an exciting time of year because I think a lot of people are visiting our campus and they're kind of exploring their options for college and where they want to go. And there's a lot of things you can do online. But if you're able to come here, if you have the ability to actually get here and feel what it's like to be on campus and get the sense of what Ithaca, New York is really like, I think it's an interesting experience and a valuable one. So, um, my question for you today is can students come and visit Cornell and when is the best time to do that? What does that look like?

Scott

Yeah, yeah the visit. Yeah, visiting I think is important if students can do it. In my experience, and talking to many many students that have enrolled here, the opportunity to visit was sort of a critical factor for them. And oftentimes it was sort of like, they came to campus and they were able to walk around and get a sense of what the community was like and it felt good. It felt like this was a place where they could succeed and thrive.

So if it's possible, yeah, I think a visit can be a good thing to do. So when is the best time to visit? We do see a lot of students coming over the summer, and that makes sense. That's a convenient time for them to come and visit. The campus is beautiful in the summer, honestly. It's actually quite quiet in the summer. We do have summer college going on, but we're not anywhere near the level of activity that we are during the academic year.

So that's kind of the downside. I think it's good to come during the summer. You can get a sense of what's going on, and it might fit your schedule. But honestly, the best time to visit our campus is when the students are here and the classes are rolling. This place turns into a beehive when the students are here and we're in academic session. So if there's any possibility to come either in the fall, winter, or even the spring to get a sense of who we are and what this place is all about, that's a great idea because you really can sort of picture yourself here or even just as valuably honestly picture yourself not here. Like a campus visit should help you understand if this really is a good fit for you in terms of a place where you get your college education. So I get the summertime visits, think they're great, but I honestly think fall, winter and spring are the best times to come. And here's my other little piece of advice around this. When people come, we have set activities for them tours and there's information sessions. They're great and I don't want to discount those at all. But honestly, if it were me going to get a sense of a campus, I would probably do those things, but I would do a whole lot of walking and looking on my own, just absolutely investigating. And one of the questions I get a lot is, can I go into that building? Am I allowed? And I'm like, yes, you are absolutely allowed. If you are a visitor on our campus, you are welcome in our buildings, poke around, talk to people. If you see people doing stuff that you're interested in, ask them questions, talk to them a little bit. It's a great way to sort of get the off the record sense of what Cornell and Cornell Engineering by extension are all about. And then my final piece of advice, I could go on for a while with this, Teri, but my final piece of advice for right now is don't just limit yourself to the engineering quad. We're a university where Cornell is,you know, what I would call a mid -size university, go and see what's on the Ag Quad. Go visit human ecology. It's one of our hidden gems. And you'll see things there that you'll be curious about and you'll be surprised by. Go to our College of Arts and Sciences. See what their world is all about. If you join us as an engineer at any time, you will be engaged in those other communities. So it's good to go and sort of just see what this place is all about. So don't ever limit yourself just to the engineering quad. There's so much to see at Cornell. And you've missed if you don't try to go and see some of those other things.

Teri 

That's a great tip. I think that we emphasize so much collaboration and our connection with the liberal arts and for you to be able to really see that being here. You know, you can go into the engineering quad and we do have a self -directed tour that you can take a map, go through our different buildings, find different labs, and expose yourself to what we offer here. But I completely agree with you. You'd be doing yourself a disservice by not going and visiting the rest of the campus and seeing what other students are doing. Because when you're here and you are in engineering, there's going to be a bridge to other places. You're going to be connected somehow to other aspects of the university. So you should check it all out.

Scott

Yeah, totally agree with that. I think that's exactly correct.

Teri 

So what kind of admissions tip or advice do you have for us today?

Scott

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about putting a plan together for thinking about which schools you ultimately want to apply to. And I am a strong proponent of making lists and actually using pretty set criteria across your list. So I think that's always a wise thing to do.

Teri

I love a list.

Scott

Yeah, I know, I don't love lists, but I understand the utility of lists. So I have to use them. Yeah.

Teri

My desk is covered in Post -it notes that are lists. So yes, I am that person.

Scott

Actually, me too. So kindred spirits, Teri. But I do think you should think about what's most important to you. Brainstorm that. Think about what you're really looking for in an engineering program. Is it a small program? Is it a large program? Is it a more technically focused program? Is it a more broadly focused program? Do you want to do undergraduate research? Do you want to go to a place that has project teams? Are you really interested in somewhere that has incredibly tight ties to industry and you're going to do cooperative education? Think about all these things that you're interested in and then use a sort of grid thing to figure out what are my top criteria and then list the schools you're most interested in and then use check boxes to figure out which ones really meet your different criteria well. And that's probably where you should focus your attention on. So you're almost using like an analytical engineering type way to try to understand, you know, what are the schools that really are in the center of what you're interested in doing and where you're interested ultimately in getting an engineering education. So I would say that. I would also say consider what I guess I call portals of entry, which are things like early decision versus regular decision. And I'll focus primarily on those because that's what we do here at Cornell. And you just have to understand what these different mechanisms are. So early decision we'll review our applicant pool for early decision in the College of Engineering between November and December, and then we'll offer admission to a certain portion of our incoming class via early decision, and they'll learn of those offers of admission around December 12th, 13th, 14th, somewhere in there. And those students that are applying early decision when we offer them admission, they're committing to come to Cornell. So they're basically saying, if you admit me, I will come to Cornell the following fall and attend, which is a wonderful thing both for the student and for us. The one caveat or I guess parachute clause to that early decision agreement is financial aid which is if you if you're applying for financial aid and Cornell does not make you a financial aid offer you can reasonably meet as a family you can withdraw from that early decision agreement and apply to other schools elsewhere. The other mechanism I guess our portal of entry is regular decision. That's later in the year January 2nd is usually the regular decision application deadline, we'll let students know at the end of March what the decision is, and those are non -binding. Students that we offer admission to regular decision can apply to as many colleges and universities as they'd like to, and then they have the opportunity to figure out based on where they've been admitted, where they ultimately want to enroll. So think carefully about those sort of portals of entry, early decision versus regular decision versus early action versus single choice early action. Build your literacy around those and understand how you can use them to your own advantage and figure out how you use those to get to a place you really are interested in.

Teri

Right. And so if you are applying early decision, you are saying Cornell is my top choice. Like this is really where I want to go. So if you do get admitted, we ask that you do come with that parachute clause. And I think a good thing to definitely point out there is that it is always up to the family to indicate whether or not the financial aid that they're getting is enough for them. So it is not Cornell dictating that. It is definitely the family that says like, this may not be the right fit for us because of this financial aid.

Scott

Yeah, great point, and I'm glad you brought that up. That is exactly correct. The family holds the power in that decision. It's not Cornell. We cannot dictate to a student, you must come. It's the families sort of evaluating what their financial resources are relative to the cost of Cornell. Hopefully, we've made it affordable for the family, and we do for almost all of our early decision admitted students. But it is absolutely the family's decision whether the finances can work out and they can enroll, the student can enroll or not.

Teri 

Right. And then regular decision, you know, you're putting applications in to many schools usually. And then, you know, if Cornell is one of those, then we do hope you pick us, but it is not something that is in a contract that you have to come.

Scott

Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. And regular decision is great too. I love early decision because we're building a foundation to our class out of early decision. But regular decision is great too because the students that really do ultimately choose to enroll here, they've made that choice amongst other offers from institutions that are superb. And so knowing that a student is chosen to attend Cornell Engineering out of that regular decision pool, is special it basically means you know they had the opportunity to go to another institution and they've selected Cornell to attend and I think that's you can't underestimate the power of that that opportunity for us to have that student join us

Teri 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. We have come to an end of another episode of you. I want to sincerely thank our amazing student, Karnavaal. Thank you, Scott, for always giving us some great advice and helping us answer all of our questions. And finally, thank all of you for listening. I hope you have learned something today, and maybe it was that you're an engineer.

Closing:

Teri

VIEW, Voices of Incredible Engineering Women Is a podcast produced and written by the Cornell Engineering Admissions Office. Please remember to like, follow, subscribe and share our podcast and help us bring engineering to the ears of young women everywhere. To find out more information about Cornell engineering please visit our website visit.engineering.cornell.edu.