For the past six months, I’ve been following a HS basketball player from Washington. I saw an impressive video of him being interviewed, I’ve read about him as both a good student and a basketball prospect, and saw some very positive tweets that he’s posted, so I found myself rooting for the young man as he sorted through college scholarship offers. Despite being named All-State and receiving a number of full-ride offers from universities in the west - including Washington State - he’s chosen to decline the offers in order to walk on (play without a scholarship) at the U. of Washington because he wants to study Aerospace Engineering. Turning down full rides to walk on is an unusual story in itself, though there’s no doubt that Seattle is a great place in which to pursue that field, especially when you’re studying in “The William E. Boeing Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.” But the really unusual aspect is that the young man is 7’4" tall. Would there be some logistical difficulties involved for a person that size who wants to pursue Aerospace? I’m sure that much of an aerospace engineer’s work would occur at a computer and on production floors, but wouldn’t there be the necessity at times to be inside of aircraft with limited room?
No. Most aerospace engineers never need to be in the belly of a plane.
Not at all. They work on physics and engineering challenges, and also on metallurgy and other scientific issues. Unless you’re going to be a pilot, you’re not likely to be in one of these contraptions.
S1 is a materials engineer and works in aerospace. But he’s involved in figuring out what metals to use for the parts. He’s never going to get inside some vehicle.
Well that’s reassuring. I’d kind of hate to think about a really nice kid that size giving up an endeavor in which it’s an asset to be one of the 10 or 15 tallest people in the world in order to pay his own way in a field that might not be able to accommodate him. But as I said - he’s apparently quite bright. Bright enough to have done his own homework about the field, I presume.
The only restrictions would be if he wanted to be an astronaut or pilot (of course not the same as “aerospace engineering”). There are height restrictions there.
There are many many many more desk jockey engineers than there are engineers in the actual manufacturing facility or prototype labs. He might struggle with the usual cubical desk and chair size but that is the probably the only hurdle I can think of.
And if they really want to fly, there are flight simulators for that. 