Last year, I had officially declared as a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer. But it didn’t really feel like I was an engineer until I started taking official MAE classes. Last semester, I took classes in Thermodynamics, Solid Mechanics, and Differential Equations. This semester, it’s Dynamics, Fluids, and Laboratory. And all of a sudden, I see the world differently. I can look at a problem and think, “Hey, I actually know how to start solving that.” That confidence is priceless. I can look at a product and start thinking about how they might have designed and developed it. I look critically at things and analyze the design decisions, sometimes thinking of ones that might have worked better.

Through a course on Hack Design, I learned a very important thing about design. They taught me to “design everything you do.” That means how you look, how you act, how your folders are organized, how you approach problems. Anything that can be designed in everyday life should be designed. And through that, one’s outlook on the design process will be tweaked and polished until it is second nature.

My dream is to design. Through FIRST Robotics in High School, prototyping different mechanisms became a passion of mine. I love looking at the world and thinking, “Oh, I know why they did that. I know how they did that.” Design is everywhere, as it should be.

Keep thinking!

~Annie