How making candles has made me a better engineer

[Forrest]

The areas I have improved in since I got serious about candle making are attention to detail, organized documentation, and planning. All of those are important things for engineers and good things for anyone to learn. Perhaps candle making should be required for all high school students.

[lightmyfire]

7 minutes ago, Forrest said:

The areas I have improved in since I got serious about candle making are attention to detail, organized documentation, and planning. All of those are important things for engineers and good things for anyone to learn. Perhaps candle making should be required for all high school students.

For myself, I can add to your list, "patience" 

[TallTayl]

I said the same about basket making after college.  Everyone joked and mocked about basket making when comparing college to life. What’s a girl to do? Yup, I enrolled in basket making classes.  Most humbling experience of that time in my life. 

[Forrest]

30 minutes ago, TallTayl said:

I said the same about basket making after college.  Everyone joked and mocked about basket making when comparing college to life. What’s a girl to do? Yup, I enrolled in basket making passes.  Most humbling experience of that time in my life. 

Maybe each student should be given a craft project at the beginning of the year. They should have to report on it a few times during the year and  present it at the end of the year. I think it would do them a world of good to make something with their own hands.

[TallTayl]

I’d back that for sure. It actually teaches some fundamental notions about business ownership:

project planning

 purchasing

production

tooling

raw materials inventory

finished goods inventory

marketing

sales

overhead

profit and loss.

 

Given how short tempered some can be I always advocate people should be required to work in retail, customer service, manufacturing, and many other industries before they start flailing about how inept another person is, or how “expensive” XYZ product is.  

[lightmyfire]

13 minutes ago, Forrest said:

Maybe each student should be given a craft project at the beginning of the year. They should have to report on it a few times during the year and  present it at the end of the year. I think it would do them a world of good to make something with their own hands.

But then they'd have to put down their phones!  What a concept!  I truly believe that people discovering a craft hobby would help reduce the stress and violence rates exponentially.  

[DoubleDee]

On 8/30/2018 at 8:48 AM, Forrest said:

Maybe each student should be given a craft project at the beginning of the year. They should have to report on it a few times during the year and  present it at the end of the year. I think it would do them a world of good to make something with their own hands.

Amen!  My son was required to do individual and group projects through technical high school and college.  He is now a mechanical engineer and quite talented.   He hated group projects.  

[Laura C]

On 8/30/2018 at 9:02 AM, Forrest said:

The areas I have improved in since I got serious about candle making are attention to detail, organized documentation, and planning. All of those are important things for engineers and good things for anyone to learn. Perhaps candle making should be required for all high school students.

I agree. Yes, got to pay attention to details, be organized, good documentation, make a plan so you can reach a goal and so on. I spend as much or more time researching, documenting my results and getting organized as I do actually making test candles. LOL. Geez, I need an assistant and I'm not even producing sellable product yet, not to mention website and social media work. 😲  Holy cow.