1. Since starting your research assignment, what is ONE significant challenge you have SUCCESSFULLY faced or resolved? In your 1+ paragraph response, make sure you: a. Describe the challenge. b. Discuss what you have learned from this experience. c. Reflect on how this experience might help you in the future.

The students like to use equations straight from a book without considering the factors. So there was one equation that my student was using in the wrong situation and I had to correct this for our project. I learned that you must be careful with the equations that you use and not try and rush your project. It will help me in the future as what the boundary conditions of the factors used in a certain situation so that we are not doing the wrong job.

2. Since starting your research assignment, what is ONE challenge you have NOT been able to resolve? In your 1+ paragraph response, make sure you: a. Describe the challenge. b. Discuss what you have learned, or not learned, from this challenge. c. Reflect on how you will deal with this type of challenge in the future.

First of all I would like to say that all the students have excellent English compared to my Mandarin, but the challenge is still language barrier. The challenge is trying to talk slow enough and simply enough words to describe what I need or what needs to be done. I have learned that learning a second language is very hard and that I am glad that they know English or we would not be able to communicate. I am taking out time at night to practice mandarin with some of the Chinese students here at SJTU and I feel that will be useful so that I can maybe converse better with the students, because I will know the way they structure their sentences and maybe even know a word that they are forgetting how to translate.

3. During the past 2-3 weeks, what is one trait/practice/behavior/way of life that you have observed in China that is most different from your native culture/background? In your 1+ paragraph response, make sure you: a. Describe the trait/practice/behavior/way of life. b. Discuss similarities/differences compared to your own culture/background. c. Reflect on how you reacted to this trait/practice/behavior/way of life.

Less personal space, this trait is especially prevalent on any mode of transportation. There is no real order to things, so everyone crams into one spot and it bottlenecks. There are no lines usually and directions are never followed. The biggest difference I have noticed is that people in America try to avoid touching each other at all cost when they are passing by, but here they will bump you, push (never a shove, but a slight I am trying to get through here), and squeeze between you and the space that nobody should be able to squeeze between. I find this way of life somewhat stressful, since there is no order. You can never predict anything, and if you are there first there is no guarantee you will be the first to get a seat on the train. But it is there way of life, and it is not hard to deal with, just do as they do right?

4. Identify and describe one specific goal for personal and/or professional development that you hope to achieve within the next month.

I actually want to finish my project. I seem to have one of the lucky situations here in China, where not much is asked of me. I want to show them the true talents that we have as engineers in America, and help them learn knowledge that I have used. This I hope will in turn let them help me with some of my problems, because we don’t know everything and maybe they could share some information with me that will help me in the future.