Expert: Andre Hickman - 1/4/2011

Question
Mr. Hickman,

First, I want to thank you for your informative and helpful advice.  Second, I want to apologize for making a new question instead of adding to the previous one (I unknowingly deleted the notice from allexperts from my inbox).
So on to the fun stuff.  I really admire you for picking up what you really had a passion for.  I still have a few years yet before I even complete my undergraduate ME program, so I hope that I can follow in a few of your foot steps in the future.  I wanted to ask, though; when you were in math and engineering in school, did you want to do design at the time too?  I find it a little difficult to balance these two seemingly opposite fields; for example - keeping up with the rigorous coursework while learning use photoshop as a tool for drawing and rendering in my free time.  Still, I feel that there will always be a road to walk, and your path definitely exemplifies that.  So after hearing your take on ME, I think I'd be fine going through with the next 3 and a half years of ME if I'm not accepted into the design and media arts major at UCLA that I'm working towards (especially since the major change to a completely different area of study is an arduous and uncertain one).  I have really taken to heart what you've told me about how your experience as an engineer has helped you in your current field.  But following that idea, is it an experience that you found enriching because it taught you "how to learn" (as my sister who just graduated from UCLA says often as well), or is it an experience that those in the art and design also find valuable?  From your experience, do you believe there are practical ways of combining the two fields of graphic design/animation and engineering?  I only ask because I find myself little bit lacking in terms of motivation to pursue engineering (though perhaps because of the apparent lack of hands on application of the lower division chem and math classes).
By no means to I want to appear to be complaining about school, or looking for an easier path.  I just want to find myself here at school, and discover what really drives me.  And I have to say, it's professionals like you who've trodden the road, found what they love, and are willing to share that with students that really make the learning experience worth it.  So again, thank you so much for your counsel, I look forward to hearing from you again.

Sincerely,
Eric Hsu

Answer
Well, actually when I discovered my love for it, I was in my last year at Georgia Tech.  I had put 5-1/2 years into a Dual Degree program, and had done my internships with NASA.  Sounds crazy, but one of my mentors said, "Find that one thing, that if you never got paid to do it, as long as you had the necessities of life (food, clothing, and shelter) that you wouldn't need an alarm clock, because that thing would consume you and wake you up everyday to do it..."  I remember the days of having to go to work at NASA, and waking up dreading going.  Sure it was exciting, and I was good at it, but it didn't consume me.  

When I found this stuff out of curiosity, it snowballed on me, and I found myself staying up for 48 hours straight researching and trying to learn.  I just never really looked back.  I have my degrees, and the knowledge that came behind them, but I also have wisdom and self-motivation that came from within and from wise people in my life. It hasn't been easy, but I love what I do.

I was just talking to my young daughter on the way home from school, and I was telling her that I didn't go to bed until 5am this morning, because I was working on this short video composite for fun/training.  She was really puzzled as to why I would spend all night working on something that wasn't going to be used for anything.  I used it as a teaching point and showed her how people that stand out from the rest do things that the rest don't do.  They go the extra mile to learn more, and to develope their craft to be better than average, even if doing so is uncomfortable.  I finished the talk with a point about Michael Jordan's life. Sure he went to basketball practice and worked out with everyone else.  But when no one was watching, he was shooting 300 jumpers on his own everyday before school.  It might not have made sense to people at the time, but it paid off later.  I now am a freelancer at a large studio, doing special fx graphics for television because I learned how to do the stuff that they need now at a time when it didn't seem to matter, and the project that I was working on wasn't real.

Don't think of engineering as some hands-on technical training, because you may be disappointed.  Look at it more as learning fundamental building blocks of how things work, and how to identify a problem, break it down into smaller problems, and then come up with solutions, and then narrow the solutions down to the best one.  If you can learn the principles of engineering and how to identify a system, you can apply that knowledge to any place in life, because EVERYTHING in life is some sort of system, whether it be electrical flow, fluid flow, or financial/business flow.  You'll be able to look at problems in any area, including how to learn and implement this graphic stuff, and solve the problems that you face.

I'm not going to tell you to stay in MechE, or to switch to Graphics...   ...All I can tell you is that even when no one is paying any attention, KEEP SHOOTING YOUR JUMPERS!!!

Cheers,
Andre