Agreed, agreed.
A Mech Eng degree will give you a pretty good shot at beginning to understand what you're getting into (and being able to absorb the other 99% that you'll need to learn about any specific niche). If you have experience in design for manufacturing, even on a hobby basis, that would probably give you a better head start toward small scale bicycle design.
One of the only people I know who designs and manufactures bikes (behind many of the best old Cove designs, and building me a custom hard tail as we speak) started out just building things with his hands and working hard to understand exactly what he was doing. Doesn't hurt to have a background in Engineering, but it's by no means necessary.
The thing about an Engineering education is that the amount of potential applications you can find yourself in is so vast, they need to give you a bit of background for everything (spread gun in Contra). You don't end up an expert in anything unless you pursue a specialization (more and more options for this route, these days). I, for one, did not, so I just found a job on the basis of "well, I know a bit of stuff about a whole lot of stuff". It just so happened that my scattered education and lifetime of dicking around with bikes, helped me get a decent job.
Sept. 27, 2017, 8:05 a.m. - Mammal
Agreed, agreed. A Mech Eng degree will give you a pretty good shot at beginning to understand what you're getting into (and being able to absorb the other 99% that you'll need to learn about any specific niche). If you have experience in design for manufacturing, even on a hobby basis, that would probably give you a better head start toward small scale bicycle design. One of the only people I know who designs and manufactures bikes (behind many of the best old Cove designs, and building me a custom hard tail as we speak) started out just building things with his hands and working hard to understand exactly what he was doing. Doesn't hurt to have a background in Engineering, but it's by no means necessary. The thing about an Engineering education is that the amount of potential applications you can find yourself in is so vast, they need to give you a bit of background for everything (spread gun in Contra). You don't end up an expert in anything unless you pursue a specialization (more and more options for this route, these days). I, for one, did not, so I just found a job on the basis of "well, I know a bit of stuff about a whole lot of stuff". It just so happened that my scattered education and lifetime of dicking around with bikes, helped me get a decent job.