Art and Engineering?
Every now and again my mom whips out a picture I drew in daycare...no she’s not that sentimental mom that keeps her child’s macaroni art...she’s the mom that throws the stuff out as soon as the child loses interest in the item. The picture is dragged out from time to time for all to see my humble beginnings as an artist. Apparently I was given the letter “H” and was told to draw something and write the word underneath on the provided lines. I drew a guy in a hat. The guy although wearing a hat, had dreadlocks, a goatee, was dressed in jeans, a shirt and a blazer. In my line I described that I had drawn a “Haitian”. In fact he looked very much like my mom's cousin Sekou who often gave me capoeira lessons in the park. The details were so impressive that everyone thought, surely I would grow up to be a great artist. Looking back now I realize that my mind was a sponge. Although I have a natural affinity to visual arts, it may have been because that was the first medium introduced to me as a toddler in daycare.
Although a gifted artist, my truest passion emerged organically some years later. It wasn’t until I was in middle school, when one of my teachers introduced applied mathematics to me, that my world opened to the possibilities. Math was no longer a string of random symbols and numbers. We were using algebra to solve geometric puzzles and for the first time in my life I got a glimpse of the creativity in computation. My world was blown wide open and I craved more, I could not get enough at school. My mom, fearing I was becoming a “nerd” enlisted me in flag football to offer variety in my life. At first I thought practice and games interfered with my quest for mathematical knowledge, but math existed even in sports. Once reluctant to join, I was now MVP. In addition, I joined the NYC Chess in Schools team where once again math assisted in my success. Mathematics spoke to me in everything I did and I was thirsty for comprehension. Through my online research I found MIT Open CourseWare, where they offer free access to recorded lectures. And just like that my world changed forever.
I had always excelled in the math and sciences for my grade level, but in short order I had surpassed all my math and science teachers. Some teachers even asked that I study on my own in the back of the classroom because my questions were beyond what they could or were allowed to teach. It was deemed disruptive to an extent to the other kids. Since I was already on the path to art school I continued to pursue that decision. I was accepted to the High School of Art and Design, where I began my formal training in the world of art. However, on my free time I continued to study more computational puzzles, attempted to recreate the Pythagoras's theorem and the Quadratic formula. Every waking moment I would read papers on the Internet from universities explaining these proofs and the cunning creativity behind the solutions filled me with excitement and drive.
If you haven’t already guessed, my passion is mathematics and I am majoring in Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Computer Science. Computer science? Where’d that come from? Well, I was the technical assistant in the house. My mom would call on me when there was a problem with the Internet, the router, the smart TV, her cell phone, laptop, iPad etc… I became, by default, the go to guy for almost anything electrical because, I apparently could fix anything. They thought I was a guru but in fact I learned from online tutorials, YouTube, reading the manuals and on some occasions calling the respective manufacturer. By the time I was 14, I had my own little business. My high school although awesome, didn’t offer much in the way of mathematics and sciences, so I had to depend on my ability to sort through the information online.
I loved math and the computer sciences and was eventually drawn to the advances in the world of Electrical Engineering. I started studying the IEEE Journals and found the best way to use my knowledge in application. Engineers were using cunning mathematical solutions to solve everyday problems. I had finally arrived at a career that would bring forth all of my abilities drawing in from both my right and left brain to make the most of my talents.
Art is a metaphysical abstraction that drives expression and creativity, a perfect marriage. Some of the worlds most difficult problems were solved with cunning and creative methods, not computational ingenuity. Transitioning from art to engineering has allowed me to see that both sides of the brain are one and the same. One of my favorite moments in Electrical Engineering history was the challenge of encoding chroma information for analog television; with the big jump from black and white TV to colored TV broadcasting this was an incredibly challenging issue at the time. The creative solution of quadrature amplitude modulation completely blew my mind. This innovation was the catalyst to my revelation that Electrical Engineering was the career I could dedicate my life to.
The versatility and potential found in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science are boundless and offer an infinitely large canvas to create and design solutions to some of the most challenging problems. It is a perfect compliment to my talents, education and passion.