Student Spotlight: Moira Forberg!

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Moira Foreberg '11 working on an engineering project.
Spring 2011
By Ina Chen

Moira Forberg is a senior in Winthrop House concentrating in Mechanical Engineering. Here is an interview where she shared some of her experiences as an engineering concentrator at Harvard:

Me: So can you just give us a brief background about yourself?

Moira: Okay, so I’m a senior concentrating in engineering, in the S.B. track. So right now I’m doing a senior thesis or a senior design project. I really like it. I had actually started out as doing Neurobiology. So I came here and I was looking into engineering but I wasn’t really sure. I took this really great seminar and ended up declaring Neurobiology. Then I realized that I didn’t really want to be a doctor or do anything with neurobiology and actually liked mechanical engineering more. And so I switched out the beginning of junior year and I have been doing engineering ever since.

Me: What got you into engineering? Or at least had the most impact in your decision to become an engineer concentrator?

Moira: I think there is a combination of reasons for why I ultimately chose engineering. I guess I’ve always liked math and science and especially physics. Mechanical engineering is really a great way to use those disciplines to produce things. You can see how math and science effect engineering or are a really big part of engineering but you also see the applications of engineering.

Me: What is the coolest science or engineering course you have ever taken?

Moira: I really liked Physics 15a. I think it’s one of the best taught courses that covered some very interesting topics. It’s also a very fundamental course that everything builds off of or at least everything I’ve done since has built off what I’ve learned in that class. Another cool class I’ve taken is the senior design project I’m taking right now. It’s ES100 and it lets students do any kind of project that they want. You can work with an industry and try to pick a real-world problem to work on or work in a lab and get that experience.
(Read about Physics 15a and other course recommendations here!)

Me: Have you ever worked in a lab?

Moira: I worked in a lab last summer. I worked in the microbiotics lab under Rob Wood and did material testings for the research that was going on.

Me: What are some plans you’re considering for after graduation?

Moira: I have a job next year at a consulting firm and then I’m going to enroll at HBS so then I’ll study for the next four years. After that I’m hoping to combine consulting and engineering and  get involved in innovative engineering firms but I guess I’ll see where the next four years take me.

Me: What are some science-related activities are you involved in on-campus?

Moira: I guess for outside of engineering, I’m not really involved in that many science-related activities on campus. I’m on the emailing list for the Engineering Society. But I think there are like 500 people on the emailing list so it doesn’t mean much. But most of the stuff I do outside of my school-work center on other hobbies that I have.  I do Irish Dancing which I actually started here. I’m also a PAF, which is how I get to go to Annenberg every day. And this is one of the main reasons why I came to Harvard. Even though I knew I wanted to do some sort of science or engineering, I also know the Harvard program will let me explore other areas. I think one of the reasons why it’s great here is because they allow you to do things outside of your course work that’s completely unrelated to what you’re studying. I have friends in engineering and I have friends out of engineering. And I think that’s great that you can have conversations with people who are interested in so many different things. So maybe the term “liberal arts engineering” is an overused word here but I think it’s the best way to describe it.

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