This Hofstra Life: Nate McQuiston
Audra Nemirow\The Hofstra Chronicle
“Mechanical engineering” is a rather broad term, but essentially refers to the study of objects and systems in motion. Nate McQuiston, a first-year mechanical engineering major, has only been at Hofstra for a month and has already achieved a kind of forward momentum. He is a man in motion: enthusiastic about his college experience so far and taking every opportunity to learn and connect with others.
At the moment, McQuiston hopes to specialize in robotics or cars, but the overarching idea of mechanical engineering, namely problem solving, is what connects him to the field and continues to inspire him.
“I really like to work with my hands and solve problems and think about better ways to do things,” he said. “I’m really interested in how the world works, and I really draw inspiration from the things I see on the internet, like different people on YouTube ... They study mechanical engineering and they can just build whatever they want, whatever serves the purpose they want, whether it’s for fun or something that’s actually remotely useful.”
For McQuiston, mechanical engineering is not just a subject to study in a classroom. It is a permanent passion, something that defies the boundary between academic life and the “real” world. The world is full of problems, full of moving parts, and this is an endless source of fascination for McQuiston, who cannot help but apply his knowledge of physics to daily life.
“When you study engineering, you are able to understand the world differently and interact with it in a different and more helpful way,” McQuiston said. “I sometimes watch the elevator and try to figure out which one is going to get to me first,” McQuiston said. “Sometimes I’m in an elevator [and] I’ll think about stuff that we learned in physics, like acceleration, and I’ll squat and stand up super-fast, and I’ll be not surprised when I get headrush.”
McQuiston is also able to find intellectually serendipitous moments in his daily life when he is home in Pennsylvania, which does not otherwise offer much to stimulate the brain. The open road can provide amusing opportunities to engage in the principles of mechanical engineering.
“I live in a small country town,” McQuiston said, “so you don’t have to worry about driving your car the best, so if I’m really low on gas, I’ll switch my car over to the miles per gallon meter, and I’ll try to figure out which way to drive your car gets the most mileage, and try to coast downhill, try to accelerate downhill to try and coast along without having to use any gas and [try] to rack up the most efficiency for what you have; I’m really interested in efficiency.”
While he may not be able to perform such experiments on the perilous Hempstead Turnpike, he can experiment intellectually and grow personally within his growing network of peers. McQuiston is a member of HofTech, for example, which allows Hofstra students to participate in projects that push the boundaries of STEM. However, McQuiston is also involved in non-STEM organizations: he is a member of the Residence Hall Association and the Rabinowitz Honors College, which allows him to meet interesting people outside of his immediate academic circle and learn about different perspectives on life. McQuiston is learning all the time, and this learning experience is inseparable from this sense of camaraderie.
“I really value the mingling of school and friends at the same time,” he said. “I don’t feel like my time doing schoolwork and my time with friends has to be separate. I feel like I’m able to enjoy each thing I do. I can study with friends but still have it be enjoyable because we’re all in the lounge, suffering at the same time. It kind of melds, and I’m having fun in my classes because I’m friends with some people in my classes ... so it all kind of feels like one continuous environment.”
Mechanical engineering is highly technical, but it requires an artistic instinct. Problem solving, after all, requires intensely focused creativity. McQuiston, who also likes to draw, likens mechanical engineering to art, and many of those he admires rely on extreme creativity to make wonderfully audacious projects.
“There’s this one guy on YouTube I watch called William Osman,” McQuiston said, “and he studied mechanical engineering, and I think it’s fun the way he solves problems that are sometimes not practical at all, but sometimes it’s really amazing how it works. Like a small machine that butters your toast really fast, or a laser printer that will cut ham and cheese to look like Vin Diesel … and there’s this one guy [on YouTube] who made a functioning Iron Man suit, and he was able to lift hundreds of pounds with his arms and he had fire on him and stuff like that.”
McQuiston has a practical approach to the future: “Short, short-term, I see myself getting pizza later. Medium short-term, before graduating, I’m hoping to get involved with internships and co-ops and really understand the hands-on part of engineering and being able to apply it to my own life. And hopefully longer-term, I see myself paying off my massive amount of student loans and hopefully having a job.”
This emphasis on breaking down a looming problem into smaller, feasible parts certainly comes from mechanical engineering, but it is also an ingenious way for anyone to approach life. With such a worldview, everything becomes possible.
