Hey Charlie,
I may not be the most qualified individual in this thread but I thought that I
would still provide my inout as it may be of some use. I currently 16 years old
and I am high school student in Southern California. While I can't speak with
any aerospace industry experience behind me I can speak to having pondered your
exact series of questions what now seems like a time that was 10^13496932528
years ago. Just before entering High School I read a book and realized I really
had to get my academic act together if I wanted to catalyze succeeding in life
now, just as I would predict you are, I was fortunate enough to have a rough
goal in the near future (IE: Aerospace engineering and in my case via ROTC).
Somehow I got the notion that MIT was (and still is) my dream or top or reach
school, however you'd like to put it. Regardless, from there I watched every
single "Acceptance Stats" video I could find on YouTube and through watching
those videos I learned about a lot of STEM programs available to high school
students and the rough ballpark I had/havs to shoot for in terms of academic
performance. Now I am fortunate to attend my states 2nd best public High School
in terms of STEM and just general academics so I was already walking into a
campus with a great Science Olympiad team, Various specific Olympiad
competitors at the national level, ISEF science fair competitors, and etc... So
I did whatever could to immediately join the community of people in those
organizations. Once again, this is another great way to learn about other
competitions and programs and "you are only as good as the people you hang
around with". But I digress, once I had established what school associated
extracurricular activities I wanted to participate in I went about exploring
and finding things to do that catered to my specific interests. For example, as
someone interested in all things Aero Astro I became a student pilot (and I
have recently applied to an AOPA scholarship program that, assuming I get
accepted, will pay for all of my flight training). I also became active on
Aero/College Twitter and so far this has proved to be one of the best movies I
have made. I can not stress enough how much it has paid off and just been
extremely entertaining to follow and engage with people in the industry or at
the colleges I dream of attending on Twitter. There I have learned lots of
wisdom, industry jargon, and once again information regarding programs and
advice. Twitter is also how I ended up on here. ("Pro" tip-don't hesitate to
ask people questions on tiwtter or enage with what someone is saying regardless
if they are Tom Mueller or even Elon, as long as you aren't saying something
totally stupid there is a non-zero chance you'll get a reply). Tangent over, as
my academic skills developed I eventually picked up a copy of Sutton's book and
read it over the Summer (the propulsion lead for the perseverance Rover
happened to catch me reading the textbook and gave me his email to ask him any
questions I had, story for another day but definitely a moment to remember).
Many people have already provided great input that j concurred with, 1.
learning to code is a great skill and can be used everywhere from feeding your
fish to programming flight computers to competing in capture the flag or
general computer science competitions. 2. Don't expect to build your own F1
engine by the time you are done with high school. While liquid engines
certainly can be taimed they are difficult and EXTREMELY expensive. Just Google
"Krytox", that is just the lubricant you will need to work with LOX. With that
being said, you can still realistically get your NAR L1 license (I built my
rocket in a moving car the night before my launch) and build systems like what
Joe Barnard has done. 3. Take advantage of the opportunities around you while
realising your position. You aren't going to be serving as a lead propulsion
technician while in high school chances are but maybe if you ask your local
aerospace company nicely you can score a summer position literally sweeping
floors as one said but that is still valuable experience. Also, your local
college probably has a rocket or engineering team that you can join. I have
"joined" my local university's rocket team (UCIRP) but I have not been able to
actually participate in any serious capacity due to COVID. Alright, that is
what has already been said. I apologize for making this so long I just feel
very… strongly about this. Another great thing to do is to read and read as
much as you can. That is how I got interested in all of this in the first place
after all, I have read literally every single book middle school me could find
relating to the Sr-71 blackbird and Kelly Johnson's Skunkworks. I recently
blasted through Liftoff, a book about the Falcon 1, and there are many other
great titles out there like Ignition. There are many other technical skills
that you can learn or at least practice as well right now, CAD (contact me
privately for a solidworks student license) welding, Matlab, etc... Before I
end I want to remind you again that I am only 16 and still can't even tell you
where the bathroom is at 1 rocket road, MIT, or KSC. PS: If anyone else has
read this far and works in socal and wants a summer intern who will do
literally anything, please message me.
Thanks,
Gram Nylen
gramnylen@xxxxxxxxxx
(1)949-343-2317
University High School, Irvine, Ca 92612
On Mar 16, 2021, at 02:04, Norman Yarvin <yarvin@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There isn't much knowledge in rocketry that's actually unique to
rocketry. Basic physics and chemistry is applicable in every other
form of engineering too; it's the foundation of them all. When you
have an opportunity to learn from someone really good, do so even when
it's not directly applicable to rocketry; such opportunities are rare.
Careers are a matter of economics: you want to be providing a skill
that's in demand at the moment, and that depends on what the outside
world is demanding. What demand for rocketeers will be like a decade
from now when you're looking for a job is hard to guess. In every
business there are cycles of interest and demand followed by
oversupply and jobs being hard to find, so don't be too dismayed if
you find you're making another use of your skills. You might even get
sucked into a place like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acbnyagl8jo
"So you're a rocket scientist?"
"I was."
"Interesting. How did you end up here?"
"It's all just numbers, really; just changing what you're
adding up; and to speak freely, the money here is considerably
more attractive."
That's not making a recommendation -- those people were _not_ having
fun, and from a societal point of view were causing a great deal of
havoc -- just saying why it's hard to make a recommendation, and why
it's safest to learn core skills and be flexible. Yes, it's a movie,
but the phenomenon of people with good math skills getting sucked into
finance is quite real, and was especially prominent around that time.
The havoc was also quite real, though of course (as Wernher von Braun
could tell you) one can also produce havoc by being devoted to actual
physical rocketry.