As I start this project I think it is a powerful tool to reflect and look back on both the things I already know about Aerospace engineering and the history that goes with that, as well as the many many things that I don’t yet know about. My essential question was initially designed around one idea. How can I prepare myself for college? I know that I want to study aerospace engineering, however, that is one of the hardest college majors in the country, and so I knew that I could seriously benefit from preparing myself during this senior project. However, beyond just this, I also wanted to get the chance to discuss the history of aerospace engineering as it is so fascinating to me. I have spent weeks researching the topic and have been to the intrepid as a visitor more times than I could count. 

Coming into this project, I know a small amount about the history of aerospace engineering, some basic astronautical engineering information, a surface-level history of the Intrepid, and knowledge on many of the aircraft onboard. This information mostly comes from a few different places. One is from MIT’s edX course, 16.00X which is an online version of their intro to aerospace class. The class only covered astronautical engineering, but was a great intro course and gave me the skills needed for online self-paced courses. I also have experience talking with (although not interviewing) veterans of many different wars and talking to them about their experiences both related and unrelated to aerospace subjects, through personal inquiry that was sparked by the school military history club. I also completed an honors project specifically about the USS Intrepid and have spent countless hours on board visiting.

While I do know quite a bit about the things I listed above, there is so much more than I don’t know yet. One of the big ones is the actual math and physics required to start working as an aerospace student. Aerospace majors often utilize physics 2, and calculus 3, to classes I have no experience in. I also need to get a better understanding of exactly what aerospace engineering looks like, and while 16.00x did a great job of doing this with astronautical engineering, I still need to do the same with aeronautical engineering. 

Finally, one of the things that I think is most exciting about my project is the opportunity to split off into a million different directions. Aerospace engineering is an incredibly complex field and I could so easily end up focusing on one single subset of the field such as fluid mechanics or propulsion, but I could also split off into a second topic that I am currently hovering over, which is military history. I love military history, and it is a field that is closely connected to the experiences seen onboard the intrepid, and so I would not be surprised at all if military history begins to play a role in my project. Luckily, military history is in some ways entwined and inseparable from the history of aerospace engineering, and so if I do decide to go down that path, I shouldn’t need to adjust my project in any major way.

I look forward to beginning my project, and I hope to see you onboard the Intrepid!