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"Hey Bill Nye, What Advice Do You Have for Our Entire 8th Grade Engineering Class?" | Big Think

2m read
·Nov 4, 2024

I'm impressive! This is my and I was wondering if you have any advice for aspiring engineers. This is great; you have an eighth-grade engineering class! That's so cool! I did not have anything that cool.

But here's a couple pieces of advice. First of all, learn algebra. Algebra can be challenging because it takes repetition. I'm sorry, everybody. It sucked for me too! You just got to do these problems over and over until you're good at them. Because apparently, being able to think about numbers abstractly—this is to say you have letters representing numbers and their relationships—allows you or enables you to think abstractly about all sorts of things.

In engineering, what we do is solve problems and make things. In order to make things, I believe you have to envision it at some level. You have to have a sense of what something's going to look like or how it's going to perform or how its pieces will interact. Whether it's an airplane landing gear or an amazing piece of software, a bit of code somebody's written that you've written, you want to be able to envision how they will interact.

So, algebra is really important, and that will lead to calculus and this mythic thing we call second-order differential equations, which, oh, so wonderful! But there's no worry on that. Then the other thing is try stuff—just make things. And of course, be careful. Just bear in mind it's not that hard as humans to make things that will injure yourself. And I'm not joking! You can sharpen a knife where you can cut your finger, but if you work with a knife that's too dull, then you're actually more likely to cut your finger.

So just remember to take chances, try things, but be safe and make that part of the process. And then, you guys, always— you got to clean up! After you've made a mess, you got to clean up. But man, you're taking engineering in eighth grade! That is fantastic! Solve problems and make things—well, use science to solve problems and make things.

Way to go, you guys! You all, thank you!

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