So thankful to see this is available near campus. Currently my kiddo is trying to decide on attending Texas A&M engineering vs MIT (accepted at both) and really likes the free rein of MIt’s makerspaces which this seems like a step in the right direction there in aggieland.
My kid has till May 1st to make his decision between the schools- have you enjoyed your time at Tamu in the engineering dept? If he chooses tamu I’m sure he’ll be looking for a place to tinker on personal projects.
I've definitely enjoyed my time at TAMU, no doubt. The people here are just fantastic, and there's enough seriously brilliant people here that it's worth sticking around regardless of academic pains. A&M is a huge school and it has a lot of talent comparable to MIT, but finding them can be tricky because the concentration is lower. For example, the top 0.1-1% engineers at A&M are probably comparable to the top 1-5% of engineers at MIT, but much harder to find and filter for. Usually though, the ones who are super talented like to build personal projects and so sooner or later they wind up at Starforge.
When I came to college, I was looking for a place to work on my personal projects primarily because I would've gone insane if I couldn't build things and I had a long list of things I wanted to build.
I'm assuming from your questions he's the same. My idea of involvement was really being on a small tight knit design team and being able to make a lot of progress quickly, while making great hardware and learning a ton. That didn't happen really, I wound up starting my own thing and that ballooned into a much bigger and better experience than I thought possible. Stressful indeed, but the results were very much worth it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I suggest he avoid design teams with more than 10-20 members as he won't learn as much so that pretty much saves him the stress of applying to most of the large well-known orgs. I keep harping on the student orgs about this, but in my opinion they mostly move way too slow to really do great work and the bigger the org, the worse it gets in my opinion.
I'm usually very bullish on personal projects and projects done with friends. It's very easy to get funding for innovative projects through a relatively new program called the Meloy Innovation Grants. He can usually move much quicker and more efficiently if he avoids doing things through the regular university channels.
This is a new program and it involves giving $2500 directly to students to work on their own innovative projects with no strings attached which has been a lifesaver for us. I can personally help him get funding for his projects and a space to work on it very easily as well as plenty of technical advice and expertise. 2 years ago this would have been an impossible ask, but through a lot of work by some great people it is now possible. There's some ways to get limited access to the FEDC but 99% of the work can be done at Starforge much quicker and with much less paperwork.
Academics:
In terms of classes I was hoping for more hands-on classes, but was generally pretty severely disappointed with the major choices. I felt like none of them really covered what I wanted in enough detail so I chose Interdisciplinary Engineering, which let's me make my own degree plan and gives me better options. Usually my impression of class projects is they make what I would consider to be a weekend project take 1-2 semesters so they wind up turning out fairly unimpressively.
However the personal project scene at A&M has grown massively over the past year. There's a lot going on at starforge and there's just enough professors and faculty on campus giving support that the whole ecosystem has grown a lot very quickly. I think he'll definitely enjoy that. It truly is a night and day difference from this time 2 years ago.
Meloy, Starforge, Engineering entrepeneurship, the whole system has pretty much went from 0 to 1 in the past two years. It wasn't just me, it was everyone who helped out along the way and a lot of it is the work of a professor named Dr. Chris Curran who's been instrumental in helping students do some great and innovative work outside of class. There's also plenty of other professors here who are very helpful and well worth spending time with. In short, the extracurricular ecosystem has grown and will continue to grow and he'll be in good hands and probably get to contribute if he wishes to.
Overall, I give the new extracurriculur ecosystem a 9/10. Plenty of projects and orgs to get involved with, quite a few of whom work out of Starforge. It's a night and day difference from when I showed up. He won't have to go through everything I (and many others) went through.
Academics (7/10):
In terms of the departments, I've had mixed results.
Professors are hit or miss, like every other school, there are great professors and there are not so great professors. It's definitely worth spending a lot of time researching the curriculum and professors before registering. Registering is rather painful, there's a lot of competition for classes and it led me to get schedules that were really suboptimal for a few semesters now, but if you track when the registration times open and you sign up in the first couple of minutes ( usually 6 AM on a Friday or something similar) you can get the schedule you want.
I advise him to spend a lot of time before committing to A&M thinking about what he wants to study and speccing out a degree plan. ETAM gives you a good amount of flexibility here, but it's a double edged sword, if he doesn't do well in his first year, it could come back to bite him.
I think though, overall, there's enough good people in the departments for him to be guided to do some great work and this is something that we can also help with. I'm generally bearish on classes as well in excess of 90% of what I've learned about engineering and building projects has happened outside of class, but some classes can be very fun and interesting with the right professor.
I'm not fully aware of what MIT has to offer, so I can't speak to that, but I truly think he can find a home at A&M and we can help him make the most of his time at college.
Best,
Ismail
PS. Here's a quick overview of some of the things we've been working on over the past year:
Thanks for the wealth of information, thankful that you and the team have found a way to learn by doing- which is one of the best ways to learn how to handle real life issues. I imagine the next time we are in Aggieland we will try to swing by and check out the makerspace- hopefully you are able to find a new location as I have heard that Hurricane Harry's location has been purchased. Thanks again for taking the time out of your day to respond with such detailed information.
So thankful to see this is available near campus. Currently my kiddo is trying to decide on attending Texas A&M engineering vs MIT (accepted at both) and really likes the free rein of MIt’s makerspaces which this seems like a step in the right direction there in aggieland.
Thank you! When you guys come for a tour of campus let me know. I’ll give you guys a tour of the shop.
If yall have any questions at all let me know, I’d be happy to answer them!
Thanks. And look forward to checking out the space.
My kid has till May 1st to make his decision between the schools- have you enjoyed your time at Tamu in the engineering dept? If he chooses tamu I’m sure he’ll be looking for a place to tinker on personal projects.
I've definitely enjoyed my time at TAMU, no doubt. The people here are just fantastic, and there's enough seriously brilliant people here that it's worth sticking around regardless of academic pains. A&M is a huge school and it has a lot of talent comparable to MIT, but finding them can be tricky because the concentration is lower. For example, the top 0.1-1% engineers at A&M are probably comparable to the top 1-5% of engineers at MIT, but much harder to find and filter for. Usually though, the ones who are super talented like to build personal projects and so sooner or later they wind up at Starforge.
When I came to college, I was looking for a place to work on my personal projects primarily because I would've gone insane if I couldn't build things and I had a long list of things I wanted to build.
I'm assuming from your questions he's the same. My idea of involvement was really being on a small tight knit design team and being able to make a lot of progress quickly, while making great hardware and learning a ton. That didn't happen really, I wound up starting my own thing and that ballooned into a much bigger and better experience than I thought possible. Stressful indeed, but the results were very much worth it and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I suggest he avoid design teams with more than 10-20 members as he won't learn as much so that pretty much saves him the stress of applying to most of the large well-known orgs. I keep harping on the student orgs about this, but in my opinion they mostly move way too slow to really do great work and the bigger the org, the worse it gets in my opinion.
I'm usually very bullish on personal projects and projects done with friends. It's very easy to get funding for innovative projects through a relatively new program called the Meloy Innovation Grants. He can usually move much quicker and more efficiently if he avoids doing things through the regular university channels.
This is a new program and it involves giving $2500 directly to students to work on their own innovative projects with no strings attached which has been a lifesaver for us. I can personally help him get funding for his projects and a space to work on it very easily as well as plenty of technical advice and expertise. 2 years ago this would have been an impossible ask, but through a lot of work by some great people it is now possible. There's some ways to get limited access to the FEDC but 99% of the work can be done at Starforge much quicker and with much less paperwork.
Academics:
In terms of classes I was hoping for more hands-on classes, but was generally pretty severely disappointed with the major choices. I felt like none of them really covered what I wanted in enough detail so I chose Interdisciplinary Engineering, which let's me make my own degree plan and gives me better options. Usually my impression of class projects is they make what I would consider to be a weekend project take 1-2 semesters so they wind up turning out fairly unimpressively.
However the personal project scene at A&M has grown massively over the past year. There's a lot going on at starforge and there's just enough professors and faculty on campus giving support that the whole ecosystem has grown a lot very quickly. I think he'll definitely enjoy that. It truly is a night and day difference from this time 2 years ago.
Meloy, Starforge, Engineering entrepeneurship, the whole system has pretty much went from 0 to 1 in the past two years. It wasn't just me, it was everyone who helped out along the way and a lot of it is the work of a professor named Dr. Chris Curran who's been instrumental in helping students do some great and innovative work outside of class. There's also plenty of other professors here who are very helpful and well worth spending time with. In short, the extracurricular ecosystem has grown and will continue to grow and he'll be in good hands and probably get to contribute if he wishes to.
Overall, I give the new extracurriculur ecosystem a 9/10. Plenty of projects and orgs to get involved with, quite a few of whom work out of Starforge. It's a night and day difference from when I showed up. He won't have to go through everything I (and many others) went through.
Academics (7/10):
In terms of the departments, I've had mixed results.
Professors are hit or miss, like every other school, there are great professors and there are not so great professors. It's definitely worth spending a lot of time researching the curriculum and professors before registering. Registering is rather painful, there's a lot of competition for classes and it led me to get schedules that were really suboptimal for a few semesters now, but if you track when the registration times open and you sign up in the first couple of minutes ( usually 6 AM on a Friday or something similar) you can get the schedule you want.
I advise him to spend a lot of time before committing to A&M thinking about what he wants to study and speccing out a degree plan. ETAM gives you a good amount of flexibility here, but it's a double edged sword, if he doesn't do well in his first year, it could come back to bite him.
I think though, overall, there's enough good people in the departments for him to be guided to do some great work and this is something that we can also help with. I'm generally bearish on classes as well in excess of 90% of what I've learned about engineering and building projects has happened outside of class, but some classes can be very fun and interesting with the right professor.
I'm not fully aware of what MIT has to offer, so I can't speak to that, but I truly think he can find a home at A&M and we can help him make the most of his time at college.
Best,
Ismail
PS. Here's a quick overview of some of the things we've been working on over the past year:
This is not everything, but a good sample. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCq9aTyVtQw
Thanks for the wealth of information, thankful that you and the team have found a way to learn by doing- which is one of the best ways to learn how to handle real life issues. I imagine the next time we are in Aggieland we will try to swing by and check out the makerspace- hopefully you are able to find a new location as I have heard that Hurricane Harry's location has been purchased. Thanks again for taking the time out of your day to respond with such detailed information.
You're welcome :)
Did ya'll wind up deciding where he was going to attend?
Ismail
He decided to commit to MIT, thanks for all of your info in regards to Aggieland Makerspace. Hoping yall continue this amazing space!