Burrito West Blog

Last night I had dinner with some classmates from my aerospace engineering undergrad - we were all on the 4th year project satellite team (as opposed to the aircraft team). It was really cool to see them again - bit of a mini-reunion, including Peter who knew some of them too. There was an option to do a 16 month internship between 3rd and 4th year so about half the people you'd be with in 4th year weren't the people you'd gone through classes with the previous 3 years, they'd be people from the year ahead returning from internships. I didn't do the internship, but Peter did, which caused the people we knew to be mixed (Peter had been 2 years ahead of me), which turns out to be kind of nifty now.

I recall being told, when I was interviewing with professors for acceptance into the internship program, that I should be open to aircraft-related jobs because the reality was there weren't a lot of opportunities in the space-side of aerospace. He actually told me I should switch my studies too. I didn't. I even went so far as to turn down an internship at Rolls Royce because I wasn't interested in aircraft engines (and the previous intern said they had re-organized the company parking lot as one of their tasks and I figured I had better ways to spend 16 months - like finishing my degree).

Anyway - point is that despite how hard it is to work in the space industry - many of my classmates from the satellite project are doing it! So, there's a lesson in sticking to your dream, despite what people may tell you about the impracticality of it. Whether or not the dream turns out to be as awesome as you imagined it is another story entirely. Let's just say it's good to be nimble and open to new dreams. :)

Also - it's wonderful to discover that all these good people I knew from school are still good people. One of them just moved to Vancouver and that makes me happy. It's always good to increase the number of good people in your life. And in the small world category, one of my friends from undergrad is engaged to someone who grew up near Peter and was a year behind him in the same high school.