Anna Zhang is by far the most athletic person I know. Having heard of her adventures climbing without rope at high heights and cycling from city to city with nothing but a tent, I wanted to reflect with her on all the cool things she's accomplished and hear about what its been like for her. I got to hear about some life threatening stories and how excited and freeing she finds the great outdoors. Besides the cool things she's done though, she also opens up about her mental health which is something that's always a little tough to open up about but I think should be spoken about more freely. She talks about how her social media presence has led to a strong sense of imposter syndrome and the anxiety she has before her adventures. I thoroughly enjoyed everything about this conversation and I hope you all will too! If you want to see glimpses of her adventures you can check her out on Instagram @hashtaganna!

Mech Series 3: To finish off this mini series, I had Marek Boulerice in this week to talk about his views on mechanical engineering and the experiences he has had growing up in the Yukon. He talks about how he is generally more interested in the journey than the destination and how that applied to some of his university decisions. He also shares some of the engineering experiences he's had in the sustainability industry where he's worked on things like hydrogen fuel cells and fuel efficient cars. However he also talks a little about the struggles he's faced trying to find a career for himself. I wanted to know a little more about the Yukon since I knew almost nothing about the region and he explained some opportunities he got being in a small town. It was also fascinating to hear about what it was like for him to come to Vancouver from the Yukon and some of the major differences he noticed. As you'll hear in the episode, I really enjoyed this episode as there were a lot of things I felt we related on and I hope you'll enjoy it too!

Mech Series 2: Continuing with the series, I talked with Chia Chi who's one of the handful of girls in my class. Besides hearing about her experience in mechanical engineering, she grew up in Durban, South Africa and I wanted learn more about that. We had previously talked about how we felt a little unsure about our program so I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she started getting more involved and felt more passionate about her work and education. She talks about the cool autonomous sailboat project she's been working on as well as how she feels about working in the industry. When we got to her unique upbringing, there were lots of surprises about how she grew up and what she considered to be normal. It was also interesting to hear the things she found surprising about Vancouver and how she boldly moved her life across the world. 

Mech Series 1: Today's episode starts off a 3 week series where I'll be interviewing classmates of mine in Mechanical Engineering at UBC. I think it will be cool to hear about their different thoughts despite going through the same program. We're starting it off with Chris who was the first friend I actually made in Mech and a close friend of mine. He talks about why he picked mechanical engineering, and some of the cool projects he's been a part of, including making an off-road vehicle and automating tests for a biology research lab. We also go on to hear about the different interests he has and some ways he feels like he's grown in the last few years. You can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-sutanto/

When Andrew and I met, he quickly piqued my interest when he told me he was super into finance, and he ended up making over $100k this year with his own money. I wanted to understand how he got this point and the mindset he has when collaborating with others. Despite being a kinesiology student and having other plans originally, he discusses how he wanted to become more financially educated and his drive for money. We talk about how he got this drive, and some experiences that helped shape him. He also goes on to talk about how he tries to focus on the things he can control and what he calls the "Inside Out" approach to problems. 

Julian is possibly the only person I know who seriously plans to try and start a career in Japan and I wanted to know what led him to that decision. He explains how he made an abrupt switch to studying Japanese in University and the feelings he went through after making that switch. We discussed the difficulty of learning a new language as well as the shared appreciation we have for the Japanese culture. He also shared some fun stories of what it was like to work in Japan, and some of the culture shock he experienced. This was a slightly longer episode but you can feel the energy and passion Julian has for the subject, so I'm sure you'll all enjoy it the whole way through!

On this week's episode I brought in one of my newer friends, Kurt Chen. He's currently the dance team captain for Project U&G, which is a dance team I'm apart of at UBC. He's a music student with many musical skills and projects, so I was interested to hear about his stories as well as his upbringing. We discussed his parents involvement in his musical endeavours and their thoughts on him pursuing music professionally. We also touched upon what it was like growing up in an all-boys high school and his social life. I had a lot of fun with this conversation and I hope you all will too! You can find him on Instagram: @kurttheviolinist TikTok: @kurttheviolinist Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-GTmOcDyesyK-V7lXxAbkw

Lawrence Tu's been a good friend of mine for a while and something pretty unique about him is that he managed to find a research job he loves, right after completing his science undergrad at UBC. As an undergrad student myself, many of us are uncertain about what to do once we complete our undergrad, so I wanted to know about his thought process during his time at university and his overall experiences. Along the way we discussed our common sport of volleyball and topics like stress and motivation.