What I'm Learning

I dropped out of public school in 7th grade to self-study because public school was not satiating my desire to learn. With the help of Youtube, MIT OpenCourseWare, the library, and Soviet-era math textbooks that my grandmother studied by, I learned programming, electronics, calculus, physics, history, and economics. 

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At 16, I enrolled in a Computer Engineering program at a small private college that emphasized projects. There, I made friends, pulled all-nighters to get projects done, and spent an obsessive amount of time applying for internships. It's a stretch to say I learned much due to college, as I spent most classes sleeping (my college required attendance) and gathered most my knowledge reading the textbook (I'm sure many students can relate). 

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Despite my best efforts to get an internship I never heard back from a single company until Junior year, when I got an email from a Tesla recruiter inviting me to interview for a Spring 2020 internship. A week later I got an offer. I learned so much from my first internship and had no interest to go back to school. In Summer 2020 I interned at SpaceX and knew that this was where I wanted to work. Despite getting a full-time offer, I was told I had to finish my degree first and couldn't drop out to return as a full-timer. Since I had no interest in school, I spent my Senior year interning at Tesla and SpaceX, taking 4 evening classes each semester to finally complete my degree.

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At 20, I graduated (and was 0.01 GPA away from getting highest honors...oops and oh well) and began working full-time at SpaceX. At SpaceX, I got to interact with folks from a number of different disciplines, like GNC, mechanical, electrical, supply chain, and operations. As someone who thinks of programming as just a tool, I realized that I wanted to become some other kind of engineer who just happened to be capable of writing software.

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In 2022Q4, I'll begin to educate myself in other fields over the weekends. My first goal is to learn mechanical engineering. On this page I'll be documenting my progress and the resources I use to accomplish this goal.