{"id":6740,"date":"2023-05-12T08:59:24","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T13:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dunwoody.edu\/news\/?p=6740"},"modified":"2023-05-16T08:55:41","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T13:55:41","slug":"goal-to-becoming-an-engineer-realized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dunwoody.edu\/news\/2023\/goal-to-becoming-an-engineer-realized\/","title":{"rendered":"Goal to Becoming an Engineer Realized"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Brennan Linn, Academic Excellence Award for Mechanical Engineering<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brennan Linn elevates quality of work above all else. Raised to take pride in that work and to do it right the first time, he deliberates over the tiniest of details to achieve what he sees in his mind as the perfect outcome. Some might describe him as an Engineering craftsman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t rush or cut corners \u2014 even if it is more economical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linn wants to hang his hat on his work reputation and sees that mentality as a lost art.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I were to run a business I would lean more towards quality over profit,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if it means they [customers] buy one of something and it lasts their whole life, that is what I would prefer rather that design it to have a continuous customer.\u201c <\/p>\n\n\n

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Some people are born already pre-wired for their career. Linn is one of them. Around the age of 5, Linn\u2019s father recognized that his son liked to tinker with things. Legos were everywhere.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe explained to me that engineers are kind of the unseen people in society that thought of the issues that would come up, how to solve those issues and bring stuff together. Test it. Prove it. Refine it,\u201d Linn said. \u201cFrom that day forth, I had my mind set on engineering. No sway. It was always: that\u2019s what I want to do.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His parents, Kimberly and Kurt Linn, encouraged him. They let him use their Roseville backyard to experiment with and build things on his own, including a zipline from a tree when he was 7 years old.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a student at Irondale High School, he took a small engines class and a woodworking class. Both classes were ones that allowed him to work with his hands \u2014 his favorite kind. Other more traditional classes disinterested him, and his grades reflected that dispassion. However, his mind never stopped spinning with ideas and solutions for complex problems. He was especially excited to learn a piece of computer-aided design software and designed a five-drawer dresser for his woodshop class his senior year.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI designed a mechanism inside so that if you open each of the five drawers to a certain position, it would pop-open a secret drawer. \u2014 the drawers were the combination,\u201d Linn said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He graduated in 2016, but instead of heading off to college, he chose to work full-time, spending eight hours a day operating a machine that made boxes. He enjoyed the work, and he needed a break from the rigors of the classroom. It was a decision that many around him questioned and warned him was a mistake. Linn was not deterred. He was still holding fast to the idea that he would one day be an engineer. After two years on the job, he was ready to return to school.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he began his college search, he discovered that Dunwoody\u2019s School of Engineering with its hands-on approach, sounded like a natural fit. \u201cI rely on deep understanding that gets affirmed through hands-on learning,\u201d Linn said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was worried that his performance in high school might cause roadblocks and credits Jonathan Aurand, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, for seeing something in him and accepting him into the program.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I interviewed Bren, he struck me as a person who is very curious.\u202fHe wanted to understand how things work the way they do and why they work that way,\u201d Aurand said. \u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From making a complex elevator project that had doors which opened and closed, to a self-cleaning cat litter box, Linn has found ways to exceed assignment expectations, often going above and beyond what is asked. The elevator project requirements did not include having doors that opened and closed, but he spent some late nights during his second year making that happen.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n