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Essay On Breaking The Authority Of Knowledge

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Breaking the authority of knowledge
I sighed comfortably seeing the standard lecture setting in ENGI120 classroom with forty to fifty white chairs and tables facing front and PowerPoint of blue background and white characters projected on the screen: it looked just like the classes I had in Chinese high school. I confidently sat in the front row, laid my notebook on the desk, turned to a new page and wrote in the first line: “August 26th, 2017, ENGI120 first class”. Sitting on the chair with my back up straight, I waited for a traditional lecture on the engineering design process. Dr. Wettergreen, who later became one of the most important mentors I have ever had, was already standing in front of the podium, his white shirt buttoned up to …show more content…

Did that PowerPoint contain all his notes? He hasn’t defined those terms yet, then how should I learn those terms? I stared at the blank spaces on my notebook and anxiously span my pen. Not until a student trying to squeeze through behind my chair whispered “excuse me” was I pulled back to the classroom. I stuffed my notebook into my bag and hurried to the workspace with the class.
There were several worktables in the space, with numerous engineering tools that I could not name crammed into boxes and placed on the surface. I chose the table where the task was designing a bike camera. Sitting down, I looked at my teammates awkwardly, not knowing where to start, and they looked back with the same embarrassment.
“Start by communicating what your goal for this project is and building prototypes with your ideas.” Dr. Wettergreen encouraged in a friendly voice. He was moving through the students, almost hidden by some tall classmates.
In the next few weeks, we followed the engineering design process, setting criteria for our project, brainstorming the design and building a prototype with Dr. Wettergreen by our side. During device testing, I was confused about how to quantitively examine the durability of our device. I raised my hand and Dr. Wettergreen came to our table, avoiding the scattered cupboard and planks of wood on the floor on his way.
“What is the correct way

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