Beyond the Comfort Zone
By: Andres Eskenazi, CAS/SEAS ’22
Andres during one of his weekly meetings with a new zoom background sporting Fourier Intelligence’s logo.
Fourier Intelligence – Singapore
One of my favorite sayings from Chinese culture goes: 不经历风雨怎么见彩虹 (pinyin: bu jingli fengyu zenme jian caihong). In English, the literal translation of this phrase would be “if you don’t experience wind and rain, how can you see the rainbow”. But going deeper, what this saying tells us, at least my interpretation of it, is that growth, learning, and success (the rainbow) won’t come unless one is resilient, diligent, and puts effort (the rain and wind) to overcome any challenge.
If I had to summarize what my past 5 weeks at Fourier Intelligence in Singapore have been like, I think I could not find any better phrase than this one. From researching emerging technologies for telerehab to international regulations surrounding telemedicine, from developing a medical device that addresses the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome out of scratch to participate in a global competition to self-teaching myself web-development, I have been working on projects truly outside my areas of expertise, let alone my comfort zone. However, in pure honesty, initially, I was a little bit skeptical about the idea of working on projects unrelated to my background in mechanical engineering and math since I felt they would not help me develop professionally. But truth be told, the more I learned and researched about these topics, the more interested I became. And more importantly, I soon realized that there can be outstanding value in moving outside one’s own zone of expertise, one’s own zone of comfort. Because as the saying goes, we have to find ways to push ourselves to do things that we would not normally do because this is how we grow, this is how we learn, and ultimately find greater value in what we do.
My projects at Fourier are pushing me to new frontiers and to a higher potential. They are providing me with a unique chance to not only learn about the rapidly growing industry of rehab-robotics and pick up numerous hard skills along the way but also to practice critical soft skills like presentation and communication. More importantly, I get to do all of this while immersed in a multicultural environment, which I consider to be indispensable given the globalized world we live in. This is what is now making me ask more than ever before who my target audience is, what ethnocultural background it possesses, and how should we appeal to its interests. Because simply put, presenting to, collaborating with, or leading a team composed of Singaporeans is not the same as doing the same to one composed of Americans. Indeed, this work environment is exposing me first-hand to the “Singaporean way” of doing business, clearing my way to slowly find the answers to these questions.
As I set my sight on in the second half of my internship, my hope is to continue embracing this attitude and try to push myself even farther away from my comfort zone. It will definitely be challenging, but as the saying goes, unless we experience wind and rain first, we won’t see the rainbow in the end.
The Virtual Internships Abroad (VIA) program provides self-directed and motivated Penn undergraduate students the opportunity to gain a fully funded professional work experience over the summer with a global employer, with the added convenience of working remotely.