Draw a LARGE diagram. When you start, you have no idea which part you’ll be focusing on, so draw it large to start.<\/p>\n
In undergrad, we had a Structures and Materials course with Prof. Collins. I owe a lot to that class. It was first year, first term, and it was our first experience with ‘real Engineering’ (with a capital ‘E’).<\/p>\n
Collins talked about (along with how to build bridges and other structures) a number of things which you would actually use every day, no matter what types of things you were designing or calculating or planning.<\/p>\n
The biggest[1] one is indubitably ‘draw a Large diagram’. Every time I do this, whether it’s on a whiteboard at work, or in my journal[2] at home, it helps far more often than I expect, especially when you’re drawing a teaching diagram, and people are asking questions.<\/p>\n
It helps when you’re drawing a semicircle intersected by many lines, with some angles known, some angles not known, and you need to do a bunch of fancy figuring to get the answer[3].<\/p>\n
Next time, we’ll talk about some other useful tidbits I learned in that class. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n
[1]Ha!<\/p>\n
[2]I use notebooks with blank pages<\/a>. It helps me draw diagrams without extraneous lines, feels freer for thinking.<\/p>\n [3]I think this was a GRE question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Draw a LARGE diagram. When you start, you have no idea which part you’ll be focusing on, so draw it large to start. In undergrad, we had a Structures and Materials course with Prof. Collins. I owe a lot to that class. It was first year, first term, and it was our first experience with … Continue reading Draw a LARGE Diagram<\/span>