I am turning 30 in a month… as this milestone edges closer and closer, I have found myself thinking about my 20’s and how I lived my life, so I decided to hold a mirror to it and write a reflection.
When I was in high school, I loved anything and everything about Formula 1, from the races, to the car designs, to even the engineering aspect of the sport. One can say that I was obsessed. I was drawing F1 cars, buying the F1 Racing magazine every month and reading every single page, and of course I would watch all the races with my dad. One day, the magazine announced a helmet design competition for Jarno Trulli, who was a driver for Toyota at that time, with the winning design being incorporated into his new helmet. So, I designed a helmet and took part in the competition. I never heard back, but I could swear that I saw the bird figure I designed, on his helmet. I am choosing to believe that they couldn’t decide a winner so they just combined the best designs and created the ultimate helmet 🙂 . The second year an F1 Grand Prix was held in Istanbul, me and my father organized a Sunday trip to see the race in person. We woke up really early in the morning, drove for 4 hours, placed our folding chairs and umbrella on the Turn 8 field (the most action filled spot) and enjoyed some tea and snacks while we watched the race. We spent the day watching all the races (on an F1 race weekend there are multiple races besides the Grand Prix). Although it was quite hard to follow the race compared to watching it on TV, nothing could compare to the feeling of seeing the race in real life. We ended up leaving before the race ended in order to avoid the crowd, so we had no idea who ended up winning. My mom was so confused when we called her and asked who won the race 🙂 .
As the daughter of two mechanical engineers, it was only natural that I started wondering how these cars go so fast, how do they turn at such high speeds, and what causes the minute performance differences between the first and last cars on the grid. I started reading more about aerodynamics, engines, etc. and realized that I loved learning about this stuff! So I decided to follow in my parents’ footsteps and study mechanical engineering. In my freshman year of high school, I decided my career goal was to become a design engineer for an F1 team. I then went about figuring out the steps that were necessary to take me there. I was lucky enough to get in contact with a Turkish design engineer who was an F1 team member and he was kind enough to answer my questions (which was super cool!). I came to the conclusion that I needed to study mechanical engineering at the top university in my country and I needed a Masters degree from somewhere in Europe to be competitive. So, I wrote my goals on a piece of paper: “Study mechanical engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU) and then do your masters in Polytecnico di Torino.” and taped it on the wall in front of my study desk. This note gave me the strength to keep working when I felt down. After four years of hard work I was accepted to the Mechanical Engineering Department at METU. I was over the moon to be accepted and started the journey to complete my first big step. The first year at METU is dedicated for teaching English and I was lucky to already know the language pretty well, which meant that I could spend less time on school and more time on my hobbies, which of course involved motorsports! I joined the “Motorsports Team” and became a race marshal (something similar to a safety official) which were my first small steps into this world I wanted to be a part of. I took part in almost every racing event that was held in the region, from rallies to off-road races, it was some of the most fun I had in my life! My fondest memories from my marshaling days though have to be the 2010 Rally of Turkey and 2010 Turkish Prix, where I got to meet with some of the drivers that I followed on screen for many years, including the future champion that year Sebastian Vettel. 2010 was an amazing year! 🙂
Then real life kicked in and as a freshman, I started taking departmental courses, which included technical drawing, probably one of the most important skill sets needed for design engineers. I am not going to lie.. I HATED that class! To make matters even worse, I didn’t really enjoy the other courses required for design engineering, like solid mechanics, machine elements, and fluid dynamics. As much as it pained me, I realized I needed to make some changes in my career goals. With these thoughts in mind, I completed summer internships at one of the biggest aerospace factories and at one of the biggest automobile factories in Turkey. Although I enjoyed my time there and learned a lot, I realized that industry is like a giant machine where each gear is indistinguishable from the other. I felt like my personality didn’t really matter and I could not personalize the job. I also realized that working strictly from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm Every. Single. Day. was not for me. So, I figured academia was probably the place for me.
After I was done with my undergraduate studies, I stayed at METU for a masters degree. At first, it didn’t feel any different from undergrad since I was just taking classes, but then my advisor introduced me to this cool project involving 3D printing and I also became a teaching assistant. When I was getting closer to graduating, I realized that if I wanted to stay in academia, I needed to go to the US for my PhD studies. So, I started looking for positions and applying. Out of the blue one day, I received an email from the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Notre Dame, asking if I would consider doing a PhD there (let me reemphasize here… I’m a mechanical engineer so ???). I was surprised for various reasons: 1) I have never heard of University of Notre Dame (I honestly thought it was in France at first because of the name) before and didn’t apply for any positions there and 2) It was from the Electrical Engineering department of all places! So I did what 90% of people would do, I ignored the email. Then, they sent a couple more emails which I ignored as well (thinking back, this sounds a bit like Harry Potter here 🙂 ). In their last email they said that they would cover the first year of my stipend if I accepted the position. Obviously, this caught my attention and I let them know that I was interested, but I was a mechanical engineering student. As a response I received an email saying that there had been a mistake and their offer was not valid for me. After that, I continued applying to other universities, and totally forgot about Notre Dame until I received another email directly from the graduate program explaining why Notre Dame would be a good choice for a PhD. After that, I decided to take a look at the Mechanical Engineering Department’s website and see what kind of research the professors were doing. As I scrolled through the faculty names, I saw the name of the author of my Heat Transfer book and thought “Wow, that’s really cool!”, and as I reached the very bottom of the page, literally the last professor, I saw a Turkish name, Dr. Pinar Zorlutuna, that caught my attention. As I delved deeper into her research, which was about tissue engineering and bio-robots, I found myself fascinated. Although it was an area that I was neither familiar with nor experienced in, I wanted to take my chance to join this field and bring my mechanical engineering background into the picture, so I sent her an email, and after a few more steps she became my advisor. It is crazy to think that my entire PhD was a combination of luck and creating my own chances. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, but I had a general idea and walked into the door that was cracked opened for me when I wasn’t sure where to go next. Before I started the position here, I knew it was going to be challenging and difficult, but I wanted to try for at least a year to see how things panned out, and if things didn’t go as hoped, I could always go back home and try something new! We feel that once we walk into a door, we can never go back, but that is not necessarily true. If you walked into the wrong house, you wouldn’t stay there, you would leave immediately since that is not where you belong. It is the same with the imaginary doors we walk through in life; if something doesn’t feel right, you don’t have to stay there. For me, it turned out that I enjoyed tissue engineering, being in lab, and working with cells. I feel grateful to have chosen this path and for the knowledge and insight I have gained over the four years I’ve spent here.
So there you have it, the story of how my goals and life transformed from high school to now. If you ask me what the take-away is, I would say: “Set a big goal, but go with the flow.” Try to remember that every age has its beauties and challenges. When you are a kid, you want to be a grown-up because they are making all the decision and it feels that they can do whatever they want. As you grow-up you realize that all those decisions come with a price and you have to be considerate while making them because of the responsibilities to yourself and others. I enjoyed my 20’s very much and I have grown from a young-adult to an adult. I have moved to the other side of the world and found the strength and courage within me to stand up on my own two feet, but I know that if needed I have the support of my family and loved ones. I am grateful for everything I have experienced in life so far and for the person they have made me. I hope that 10 years from now, when I am turning 40, I can look back at my 30’s and feel the same way…
2010 
2020
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