This is a picture of a few of us on the team - Daniel Ju - Previous YD director, Kusal Uprety - Mechanical Lead, and I - carrying down our autonomous underwater vehicle down the retractable stairs of SIO pier off the coast of La Jolla Shores. After 5.5 years of inception, development, leadership change, and lots of hardwork - this would be the first time our system made it to the ocean.

After becoming mechanical lead the year before this, and working really hard to adapt to my new position of overseeing a design, manufacturing, and analysis team, I was uncertain, to say the least, about my capabilities of directing 20 people. Not only in the realm of mechanical engineering, but in electrical and software.

At the same time, I knew I was motivated, and I still felt like the right person to do the job, regardless of how much I knew.

I jumped into the deep end, pun intended, and not only learned so much more about every other discipline of engineering alongside my mechanical knowledge - but also about interdisciplinary work and collaboration. I began to understand as our team worked through fall quarter, that our technical knowledge and capabilities were actually going to come second. And I mean - what was most important, was instilling a belief as a team that what we were trying was achievable.