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Q: Tell me a bit about yourself at Princeton, what year are you, what are you involved in, what's your major at Princeton, and if applicable, what research are you doing?

A: I’m a senior in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department, and on campus I am mainly involved in intersections between engineering, design, and sustainability. Princeton Racing Electric (PRE) is one of those, since we are working on electric cars. And then outside of that, my thesis is actually related to PRE, so I am redesigning the battery for the next iteration of the car– so I am learning a lot about that in battery research and design as well.

Q: At Princeton, as an ECE major as well, sometimes I feel like engineering majors are almost expected not to have their foot in the humanities. Do you think that Princeton does a good job of combining the humanities/social sciences experience with the engineering experience?

A: I think it definitely could be more integrated–there are definitely divides that exist. And I’m sure some of it is personality wise, just between A.B. and B.S.E., but I feel that dichotomy sometimes pigeon holes people into certain areas. Then, you are seen in a different light if you are either an A.B. student entering a B.S.E. space or vice versa. So I think the school could definitely do better at integrating us more–I know Writing Seminar is something that we all have to take, but maybe there could be more [of that].

Q: That makes sense. You mentioned design being a big part of your education at Princeton, so I was curious, it seems like engineers are seen as technical specialists, but do you think that engineers should or shouldn’t also be seen as designers or even artists in a sense?

A: That's a really good question, which is partly why I think your assignment is so cool. Because when I referred to design, I was thinking about what I had done in the past with design-thinking courses and architecture-related classes, and those are very distinctly design. And in engineering there is sort of a looking down upon designers as the “non-technical.” I think engineering in general has a lot of deep rooted, elitist, gate-keeping thoughts that look down upon artistic or creative areas. But I think it definitely exists, maybe without engineers acknowledging or embracing it as much. In computer science there is really a hierarchy between back-end and front-end development, where design is seen as artsy and not as good as coding, which in my opinion is very wrong.

Q: Yes, and I think in ECE that especially is a thing that is not taken into consideration, since ECE is such a “hard” science, and there are often no visible design elements. But in an area like CEE or architecture, that is design that you can typically see and design is mentioned within those fields. Do you think that design in an aesthetic sense is thought about or mentioned in an ECE sense?

A: I think it definitely is. I think the word design is very interesting in and of itself. Because even in architecture you can have a beautiful building, but it still has to be functional to a certain degree. Like the doors have to be tall enough for people to walk through. And I feel like it is the exact same thing in ECE but we don’t use the word “design” for some reason. Like you’re taking 203 [Circuit Design] right now, right? So even when you are drawing a circuit, electrically it can connect an infinite amount of ways–like you can put the resistor ten feet away from the rest of the circuit, and obviously there is some thinking about short wires, less resistance, and such, but there is a design portion to making a circuit schematic look nice and be easy to read. And there is an amount of being aesthetically pleasing, which makes it easily transferable to other engineers. So I think it definitely exists in ECE.

Q: And I wonder what that value of–okay we want our schematics to look like this, we want to make our PCB [printed circuit boards] to look like this, we like our wiring to look like this–comes from. Do you think that was more inspired by functionality or do you think there was a visual component or something else even?

A: I think there definitely is an aesthetic quality. Because even with PCB design, for example Edward [another PRE member] and I were fixing some of the fills last night on our PCB board, and every time he draws a fill on the computer system, he looks at the 3D viewer so he can see what it looks like from above. And we know based on the software that the fill is electrically connective, but looking at the corners and how they match up, there definitely is an aesthetic portion. I can mainly just talk from circuits and PCB design and systems–more hardware, because that's where my area is–but there is a general sense of aesthetics in ECE.

Q: Do you think that is appreciated outside of the little ECE bubble that understands that? I guess if someone sees a circuit board and doesn’t understand what’s going on behind it, do you still think there is still something about that circuit board that could make the person say, “oh that looks nice” or “oh that doesn’t look nice,” or do you think someone has to have some sort of technical understand to appreciate the layout of that board?

A: Oh, I definitely don’t think you need technical understanding, and I think if you have surpassed a point where you can have your board look nice–even without the barrier of “technical knowledge”--that is actually very aesthetic and I definitely think that can exist.

Q: That is so true. The other thing I was thinking of in this conversation about electrical engineering and aesthetics and all of that was that there seems like some–dare I say “artsy fartsy”-- ECE things coming around. I don’t know if you have heard about sewing with conductive thread or organic circuits or flexible circuits. But do you think that there is a place within circuit building that could become its own medium or form of art? Within engineering itself with circuit-builders who are thinking about that or even people who aren’t a part of the ECE world, but appreciate the look and the idea that you can make something that looks interesting but also function in a operable way?

A: I think you are describing what I really want to see happen, but not necessarily what I predict will happen. Because, correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you are almost describing an opening up of circuit design so it's not just “super techy and smart” and the idea of “our designs are so obscure you can’t even understand anything about them” isn’t around. And sort of opening up to circuits being more aesthetic and accessible and everything. But theory and research in general is so–it fetishises its own exclusivity a lot of the time using technical gargain and ideas to protect those ideas. I think what you're describing is really cool, but I don’t know if it's necessarily in the near future.

Q: Yeah, it's not just about people being like “oh, that looks cool,” it's about people having the capability to access that information.

A: Exactly, yeah.

Q: I guess a final question I had about the role of engineer as perhaps designer or artist, was that a lot of what we make and a lot of what we use is used in art. Whether that's soldering, whether that's some device we make for audio processing, signal processing, anything like that. Do you think that the role of engineer should or shouldn’t be viewed in a static context where it's like–”okay you're the tech side. You have created something, but you're not part of how it's used.” Or, is the engineer part of how it's used–are we part of the artistic process?

A: Hmm, I think engineers definitely should be. It really goes back to your question about A.B. vs B.S.E. One of my friends is MAE but she welds, and she actually learned welding in a VIS sculpture class, and is using those welding skills on the PRE car now. So obviously, there is a lot of connection–the use of soldering too, since in jewelry you solder a lot of things, and it's a tool not just for circuits. So it's very interlaced, but engineering does its best to try to separate all the different connections. So I guess, going back to your original questions, I think engineering should be more interdisciplinary and connected to the arts, but just with the financial motivation of capitalism you tend to have “okay, I have one head who is a coding person, my other head is the business person,” and that's most profitable because you box people into these niches that help you generate the most revenue and productivity. Just with that, it's kind of hard. But smaller companies, non profits, startups, or personal engineering projects you could count that.

Q: Do you think by specializing we lose or gain–do you think that we would be in the same position we are knowledge-wise if we didn’t specialize?

A: I think there is a difference between specialization for productivity and specialization in the context of collaborating with others. But that’s a really good question. Not everyone on the team can be the jack of all trades. Everyone will have their peaks and what they are better or more knowledgable or experienced at. But it's very much the celebration of being a circuit designer and being someone like an architect who knows how to make things look aesthetically pleasing that is not so much valued.

Q: For me, I often feel like I am not the most “technically” smart in Princeton–there's a lot of people who know very specific and detailed information about several topics. For me, it's a lot of varied information across the board so I feel like a “jack of all trades, master of none.” Have you ever felt like you fit into that category? And do you think that has helped or hindered you while at Princeton?

A: Yeah, for the first three years of Princeton, I very much felt like that. But I think it's very different at school versus in a corporate sense. Because at school, we have the freedom to actively hunt out those opportunities to learn as much as we can, so we can find out what we want to hone in on. And for me, it did take a while–like my course schedule is a mess. I've done a lot of different classes in technical areas and non-technical areas as well, and it's that sort of exploration that helped me narrow down what I do enjoy. And it is very, even for me now, intimidating to be around the very “techy,” usually male dudes who do like multiplication with four digits in their head, but there are different types of journeys in engineering for sure.

Q: And what about in a corporate sense, do you think that employers value varied educational experience or do they tend to overlook it a little?

A: I think it definitely depends on the company and the culture and your specific manager. Its very varied. Even if they say they think it's important, sometimes their words don’t necessarily match their actions. So I think it really depends case-by-case.