Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / How Mechanical Engineering Led Him to Chip Architecture | Wesley Grammer
Transcript
- Malcolm: So we wanted to ask you start mechanical engineering at ANT ⁓ and end up doing RCL and chip architecture at Georgia Tech. So like we want you to walk us through that pivot and let us know like what made you realize mechanical engineering wasn't the full picture of what you to build. Wesley Grammer: Yeah. I mean, like you said, I feel like it was something that we all realized being in class every day and just kinda getting deeper and deeper into the major, like really getting into certain aspects of it. And the thing about school that I feel like is difficult is that with within any engineering discipline, any any major at all, but especially engineering, like no matter what discipline you pick, they show you every possible niche and job that you can kind of get into with each major. So Malcolm: Yeah. Wesley Grammer: You're kind of exposed to all the different aspects of mechanical engineering, even if you don't want to do every aspect of mechanical engineering. And that can really kind of drive you off your path of kind of being interested in a subject. So you could like one aspect of it, but because it's a a a a curriculum through a school, they have to show you every facet of it. And that can kind of show you sides of it that you might not like. And especially mechanical being the broadest engineering discipline, like we saw everything, right? So Malcolm: Yeah. Wesley Grammer: Getting in some of those classes that I didn't personally enjoy, vibrations, all that kind of stuff. I know y'all remember that, but like that that wasn't kind of the side of mechanical I enjoyed, but there there were some sides of it that I enjoyed. and I feel like I kind of decided to lean into the ones that I did enjoy, the class that we took that I did enjoy, and kind of see ⁓ how I can kind of dive deeper into subject matters pertaining to those. Malcolm: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Wesley Grammer: Obviously, like we did like Arduino classes, ⁓ did circuitry stuff. That stuff I actually enjoyed. So I kind of wanted to lean into it with this master's degree, see if I can get a little bit more deep into it, see how what more I could learn about it. ⁓ and obviously personally, from my perspective, I saw mechanical as a pretty not stagnant field, because it's obviously still a lot of innovation being kind of created throughout the field every day. And that's pretty much any engineering discipline. But From what I saw in the landscape, a lot of the innovations within mechanical were being driven by additions through electrical components and computer related components. So I was like, well, if even the mechanical industry is kind of being innovated by integrating different electronic and computer systems within them those mechanical systems, then why not kind of go back and get the degree that would Malcolm: Yeah. Wesley Grammer: kind of cater to that and where the industry is going and stuff like that. So that was kind of my thought process behind Malcolm: Yeah. Nah, nah that's a ⁓ nah you touch on a lot of good points. I think like like I think like the that is one thing I say I'm I'm grateful for 'cause think like the versatility and like broadness of mechanical engineering, I think like you you never you're never gonna low know like I think if you're interested in another field, like if you're in a more concentrated engineering discipline that makes sense. Like I think like for other disciplines it's like, you know, like let's take like a something like a civil engineering or a comp sci or a ⁓ Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Malcolm: even like a like an architectural engineering like I feel like those are so like hyper focused like on just that where it's like you don't really like they may have class I don't want to speak entirely to it but it's like I'm I don't think that they have as many classes where it's like branches of other engineering disciplines you can kind of like pick and grab from to know like all right I do like this part I don't like this part but I feel like with with EMI like obviously we have our core classes but bro there's so many other classes that we took like across like electrical ⁓ all the different math classes the physics classes the the heat transfer classes the you know coding class so it's like I think all that kind of like like gave you that breath to like figure out like all right, like this is what I like, this is what I don't like, and ⁓ like help you kind of like come to the decision that, you know, you did.