I never wanted to be a fireman or a police man. The first career I wanted was to be a furniture designer. (When I was 8 I built a very ugly stool out of some scrap wood my dad let me use.) Then, when I was like 10, I wanted to be an architect. Then I wanted to be a doctor. Then I became an engineer. As a kid, I knew what an architect did. I didn’t know what an engineer did. The dad in The Brady Bunch was an architect. (The dad in Leave it to Beaver was an Engineer, but I didn’t know that at the time.) My high school French teacher was one of my favorite teachers. Her husband was an architect. He designed their house. He hired me one weekend to help paint his office. I hadn’t thought of that in a long time. I really liked biology class and wanted
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At the end of my first year, my friend Jeanne suggested we take a class together fall quarter sophomore year (the 2nd year). The class was called Visual Thinking, the first class in the Design section of the Mechanical Engineering department. You learned to sketch ideas and build simple models. It looked very interesting. It was a very popular class, though and hard to get in. They gave priority to Mechanical Engineers, so Jeanne and I declared that as our majors and signed up for the class. Once I declared, it seemed like too much work to change, and I really liked that class, so that’s how I became a mechanical engineer. (Jeanne is now making films in LA.)
The design work I do is a lot like the design work an architect does. The materials are different, the scale is different, but I still have to visualize my designs in 3D, build models of them to work out the details, build a materials list, estimate cost, etc. It’s very similar. I think architecture is more artistic and engineering is more analytical, but they are very similar. When I was a kid, I was put off by the idea that architects have to know what materials are available, and what sizes, and how to use the materials efficiently. Now I really like that
At the end of my first year, my friend Jeanne suggested we take a class together fall quarter sophomore year (the 2nd year). The class was called Visual Thinking, the first class in the Design section of the Mechanical Engineering department. You learned to sketch ideas and build simple models. It looked very interesting. It was a very popular class, though and hard to get in. They gave priority to Mechanical Engineers, so Jeanne and I declared that as our majors and signed up for the class. Once I declared, it seemed like too much work to change, and I really liked that class, so that’s how I became a mechanical engineer. (Jeanne is now making films in LA.)
The design work I do is a lot like the design work an architect does. The materials are different, the scale is different, but I still have to visualize my designs in 3D, build models of them to work out the details, build a materials list, estimate cost, etc. It’s very similar. I think architecture is more artistic and engineering is more analytical, but they are very similar. When I was a kid, I was put off by the idea that architects have to know what materials are available, and what sizes, and how to use the materials efficiently. Now I really like that