Here's proof that doing great things takes many paths.

I've always thought of those who end up in high profile positions, with the really cool jobs, as sort of nerd royalty.  In most cases, they are.  These are the guys who didn't have to work in high school, and who actually chose to focus on school, and taking high level classes, and doing relevant extracurriculars. (So basically, I'm in no way denying that nerd royalty hasn't worked hard for it.  They do work hard, from a young age.)  They're the ones who could confidently apply to places like MIT or Cal Tech, and know that they'd be able to afford to go even if they didn't get a full scholarship, and that they wouldn't have to work two jobs just to put a roof over their heads while they were there.  They graduate when they're 22 years old, and move seamlessly to grad school, and through a delicate combination of hard work, ingenuity, money, and internships, they find their way to NASA.

In today's science and engineering community, money is a huge driving factor.  It always has been, but today, with the cost of tuition increasing 500% in the past couple decades (a disproportionate increase compared to cost of living in general, and especially compared to income), it is more of a driving factor than it's ever been.  The ones who get to the places all of us dream about, are the ones who have money to throw at it.  That's something most of us have accepted.  It also seems that there is a certain archetype, and it's the ones who are able to do it the conventional way, who really get where they're going.

Today, I read something that really made me happy.  One of the guys on the Curiosity team, the one who was in charge of the actual landing of the rover on the surface of Mars, is a rather non-traditional fellow.  You might have noticed Adam Steltzner on the footage of the mission control room, as the one with the cool Elvis-like hair.  I know I thought that was pretty awesome anyway!  Well, the part that's even more awesome is the fact that this guy is not even close to the archetype of nerd royalty that most of us have come to accept.  He actually dropped out of high school once upon a time (because he didn't do well in high school, nor enjoy it), and traveled around playing in a rock band.  He became interested in the stars after noticing how different they looked at different times, and enrolled at a community college, then went from there.  Who could have ever guessed he'd end up landing a rover on the surface of Mars? 

Let me tell you why this gives me hope.  I am not the nerd royalty archetype.  I struggled financially in college, and joined the Army.  Then I went back to school, and ended up leaving again with two semesters left, in order to save my marriage.  Now I am going back, and I feel like I'm on the brink of something very important. Even so, the nagging thing in the back of my mind is always reminding me of the people I went to school with before, who had the luxury of doing things the way you're really supposed to do them, and are already working in awesome firms, doing amazing things, moving up.  Am I destined to always be just a low level engineer, who never moves much past the point of designing drainage ditches and parking lots? (Not that there's anything wrong with that work, and I'll more than gladly do it. I just hope to do other things as well.)  I had some wonderful opportunities years ago, and walked away, because it was that or my marriage.  I just hope that my ship hasn't sailed, that I'm not stuck with what I have, because I didn't push through, and get where I was going, even though I'd have gotten there alone.  Seeing that someone else did it in a non-traditional way, and he's not locked into a life of low level work (anything but!) is very nice.

I am not, and will not be, in aerospace engineering.  It is not my calling, and it never was.  I enjoy this stuff, though, from a spectator's (er... physics junkie's) point of view, and having some ties to that community, I'm very proud of these guys.  My equivalent would be to get on with a good firm or the Army Corps of Engineers, and live out my days designing wonderful things that will outlive me by a long shot, even if they are the kind of things that most people don't even notice when they see them.  If a former high school dropout can land a rover on Mars, I can get where I'm going, too.