How I learned to make stuff (Patreon)

The number one question that I get is what education I got to learn to make the things that I do. I did go to college but I would say that most of my practical skills were learned outside of school. I’ve been making things for as long as I can remember and most of what I know has come from just going for it. Many of the projects I choose have things that I don’t know how to do. In the process of making the thing I learn new skills which I apply to the next projects I do. Repeating that many times you get a snowball effect which allows more and more complicated projects. So my advice is to not wait for a degree - just get out there and start doing. If you’re a real noob you’l be starting with simple things like making an LED blink, a webpage that says “Hello World” or machining a cube but you will build a foundation from there. For every skill that I have, that's where I started.

That said explicit study and college are very useful for building a strong theoretical base on which you can build more advanced skills. I have degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. Getting these degrees was a) worth it and b) taught me things that I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. As an example I was writing iPhone apps before I got my CompSci masters’,  but in school I learned a lot about algorithmic analysis and computational time complexity. This took my programming skills to a new level and has allowed me to solve some truly hard computational geometry problems that I know I couldn’t have solved otherwise. 

I try (keyword: try) to spend a few hours a week in self study. I have a stack of textbooks representing skills I would like to be better at. I slowly work through them (currently physical chemistry and electrodynamics). I try to spend some amount of time each week reading the textbooks and working the examples. I don’t blaze through them but if you do it consistently for a year you find yourself knowing a whole lot more.

Ultimately I would like to have the skills to make anything that I want. Especially cutting across traditional engineering disciplines. There’s so many cool things waiting to be invented...