Team:Heidelberg/midance

Are bioengineers potential cheerleaders? A practical perspective.

Would you argue that engineers are cheerleading personalities? They are definitely reputed for their thoughtfulness and diligence, but can they thrill an audience with cheer? If not, is the reason that the subject or its environment impedes such behavior or its underlying maturation? We think that this question is of crucial concern for many young scientists including students who are about to choose their collegiate curriculum. Of course, the financial and career perspectives in engineering are very promising, but this revenue should not be overshadowed by the sacrifice of social boredom.

We conducted a simple experiment to test our immanent potential for cheerleading. Being instructed by a dance coach, twelve "decent" but motivated students from our team practiced and danced a cheerful hip hop choreography and illustrated the result in a video that leaves no bioengineer on his or her chair!

Our finding shows the promising perspective that competitive research in bioengineering (and likely any other engineering science) can be connected to a sophisticated culture of cheer. Whether too much cheer has an adverse effect on engineering quality cannot be answered here - it probably has, but …

… the truth is that we are just going to have an awful lots of fun at the jamboree, forget the experiment and fly to Boston with us!