Things Jerry Told Me

Jerry’s not his real name. He looks a bit like Ramsay Bolton, but less evil. He works in the same lab as I do, and while I was staring down into the four-year abyss of engineering college, he was almost done, on his last day of his final Northeastern co-op.

And as I fumbled with Matlab, as he waited for a final rendering to complete, he dispensed wisdom to me:

Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Solve the problem, not what you think the problem is. One time, Jerry’s friend was part of a group trying to build an assistive device widget on a shoestring budget. The group was trying to 3D print some complex design that cost $200 and was too tightly toleranced to actually work. Jerry decided to help his friend with the project, so he put together his own solution.

Jerry’s design wasn’t $200 of complexity. It was three dollars of spare parts and an instruction list that anyone could follow.

Most of the time, you don’t need 3D-printed mounts or custom-designed frameworks. Between Velcro, duct tape, zipties, and cheap, off-the-shelf parts, you can solve 98% of your problems.

“If you ever look at your design and go, ‘wow, that’s complicated,’ you are wrong,” he said. Step back, take another look at your problem, and ask yourself:

Are you solving your problem, or are you merely accounting for imaginary constraints?

Do Things. Meet People.

Go to clubs where you do things. Not those clubs where you talk around a whiteboard a lot and end up with $200 solutions to $3 problems. Go to clubs where you’re greeted with “Here’s a hammer. Go knock things around,” as he put it. Baja Club, for example. Or makerspacing. You’ll learn not how to solve problems but how to solve problems in real life.

Talk to everyone you can. Volunteer for the weird jobs. Be the student representative at those panels where high schoolers grill you about drug culture at your college. Speak in front of a hundred people for an event you otherwise would have had nothing to do with. Get to know professors you may never have classes with.

When Jerry switched majors, he was told by the registrar he would need to stay an extra year to get back on track. Jerry disagreed, and asked for a half-year schedule, overwork be damned. When the registrar didn’t budge, Jerry talked to a dean that he had become friendly with. The dean trusted that Jerry would pull through the near-impossible schedule, so soon, the registrar got a letter from the dean:

“Jerry does what he wants.”

The things you do and the people you meet will shape you and open doors for you. You’re in college to learn, dammit, so put that time and money to good use.

I knew none of this — at least not firsthand. But I listened, because I sensed Jerry was keeping it real for me. I’m not sure why — granted, he was quite talkative. But I took notes, because with my lack of experience, I would need all the “real talk” I could get, until I built enough experience to dispense wisdom to another kid about to begin engineering school.