I began this blog with two main goals in mind:
- To create a resource through which engineering students can improve their lives by applying the concepts they study every day
- To allow the everyday man to learn engineering concepts in a more down-to-Earth manner, and given enough time, possibly migrate into the former category
The first goal is by far going to be the harder one, as that is the one where I contemplate things in my life and generate new knowledge and insights into the nature of reality.
Very much yuck (at times).
But the latter one is going to be set up as a little “challenge” – I will begin at the beginning, that is to say, I will begin with a beginner’s mind. I will be studying engineering as if I were coming upon it for the first time ever and I will try to think of it like a 5 year old would. I am sure that it would be as beneficial for me as it will be for you, dear reader.
I have thought about how this will play out – to what degree my schooling will interrupt my education.
Truth be told, schooling isn’t as good as it used to be or as good as it’s claimed to be. So I don’t really think that I have any special advantage in terms of knowledge, over the regular reader. My only advantage lies in my confidence, built up by nurturing a “been there, done that” attitude about these topics.
I have thought long and hard about where to start with it all, and I called upon a certain post I came across years ago. I will be adhering to that guideline, which I found on Quora called: Survival guide for mechanical engineers on the journey to create astonishing engineering
The link is a re-post, the original answer has long gone since, but the sheer wisdom it gives is enough for it to be the best current candidate.
Interestingly, it starts with Wikipedia and programming, instead of engineering books or courses. And make no mistake, we will be utilizing both Wikipedia and Python.
However, if we were to base our whole approach only on one resource, then this blog wouldn’t have much of a purpose would it – you can take off now and just do it yourself, you have the link.
Instead, I will latch on to a couple more resources, but always coming back to this one to take a look and gauge efforts and progress. Truth is, Wikipedia and coding is how anyone should start….well, ANYTHING in the modern era, but I digress. Like I said, there will be many sources but this one will be the main one, along with a little book which I will not reveal. For remember what C.E.M. Joad said:
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”