As I am still a few years from graduation and have little to no experience with design or production, I hope to gain experience with laser cutters, 3D printing and prototyping. I think 3D printers are very cool, so I am really excited to work with them this semester. In general, I hope to gain a better understanding of the entire design process from initial ideas all the way through to creating a final product. I also see the benefits in learning how to give a helpful critique, rather than simply criticizing a design based on what I don’t like.
I really have no idea what I want my first job to be since it is still a ways down the road for me and my interests have been changing rapidly. Last year I thought I wanted to be an Aerospace Engineer and now I’ve switched my major to TAM and am leaning much more towards design. Something I am fairly certain of, no matter what the job, is that I want my first job to allow me enough spare time to focus on my passions outside of work allowing me to pursue my long-term goals.
In the long run, I hope to be a business owner of a company that designs and produces products. Yeah, yeah I know that sounds very vague but at the moment vague is about as specific as I can be. In addition to this, I hope to be involved with my work in a hands-on manner, whatever it may be. I look forward to seeing what direction the next handful of years will lead me.
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Kenzy, I think that your enthusiasm will take you a long way. There are lots of tools that you’ve identified you don’t know about yet, but learning those will be the easy part of this whole process. I’m impressed that you’ve identified TAM as your major and you’re focusing on design – that is a really cool field that it seems like you’ll do well in. I think that this semester’s class and project will help give you a better idea of what a “design cycle” looks like in practice.
It looks like you have got it all figured out! But really you are on the right track. It was only during my second semester of senior year that I was able to narrow down what I wanted to do further than “engineering things.” Keep trying as many new things as you can and you are sure to find what you are passionate about.
I totally relate to not knowing what you want to do in life yet. I also started out doing aerospace but ended up switching majors to ME. But you’ll be fine since you have interests such as 3D printing and design to guide you. Just keep plugging along in life and you’ll definitely find something that inspires you (and maybe what you want your future business to design) soon!