By Andrew Fasano
Staff Writer
Costa junior, Zach Horowitz “engineered” his summer by attending the summer at Brown engineering classes in order to broaden his interest in engineering.
From June 19th through July 1st, Horowitz participated in two summer courses at Brown University where he studied both general and biomedical engineering. The first week was an Introduction to Engineering class, and during his second course he learned about biomedical engineering, which is a field Horowitz says he hopes to further study in college.
“I had a great time visiting the school and learning more about engineering,” Horowitz said. “The school has so much to offer with all of its engineering programs, but the biomedical field seemed to intrigue me the most.”
Brown University’s Engineering Program website.
On the first day of his first week at Brown, graduate students from the university spoke to the class about their time at Brown while studying engineering. Horowitz said this further sparked his interest in engineering because the students said positive things about their time taking the course.
“What stood out to me the most was the broad range of the research which ranged from the flight of bats to something as simple as water,” Horowitz said. “All of it was extremely interesting.”
Summer at Brown sign-up sheet.
An average camp day consisted of a three hour class every day from 1pm-4pm. The topics of the class were different each day, ranging from computer design to studying diagrams of the muscular system. Each class would start with a lecture and progress into a lab and/or a tour of the different laboratories located in the Brown University School of Engineering.
“I really liked the schedule of the camp because it gave me a lot of free time,” Horowitz said. “I used this time at first to complete the homework, and to hang around the campus and check out new areas.”
At the end of the second course, Horowitz’s class was assigned a project and divided into small groups, who to meet during their free time, somewhere on campus, in order to work on the project. This final project was to create an effective replacement blood vessel that could be used during a coronary bypass surgery, a surgery performed on the heart.
“All of the facilities the school had surprised me due to their extravagance,” Horowitz said. “I didn’t expect for the school to have so many useful resources that were free for students to use on their own time.”
Horowitz says that the program was very challenging yet interesting, and prior to his time at Brown, science has been something that he enjoys. Horowitz is currently enrolled in Honors English, AP Biology, AP Calculus BC and Honors US History. He says these courses prepared him well for this camp.
“Zach’s had some great teachers and mentors along the way who have challenged him and helped him be able to be in this situation,” Horowitz’s mother Greta Horowitz said. “He has always been a hard worker, taking the time to really understand what he’s learning, which has helped more easily discover his interests and learn new concepts.”
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