I'm going into my 2nd year at uni, based in the san francisco bay area and want to get into hardware (point 1 of advice)! School has been not a great fit for me and need perspective re: dropping out (advice point 2).

1. Engineering.

Over the past 2 months, I really loved the physics and engineering of programming NFCs, webapps that vectorize smells and allow searching, and making $8 microelectrode arrays (tiny grids of wires!) by laser-induced graphene on microscope slides, whereas usually they're $300, with my friends.

Skills I want to become proficient at: I want to be good at rapid prototyping on the edge of status quo in research. low-level programming, CAD skills (kicad, fusion), PCB design, lasers and micromachining, bioamplifiers, spectrophotometers

Other stuff I want to do (right now!): text-to-smell diffuser system, scent recognition system, fast steering mirror system and error correction.

How can I further push myself and learn faster here? Any advice is appreciated. I had many collaborative projects spanning microdrones, biosignals, etc and 3 internship-equivalent experiences.

2. Conflicts with school.

I would really like time find rare quests and push the status quo collaboratively, and I self-learn really fast per project (mentors have noted this).

Any more time in the structured school system is causing a lot of unhappiness. In elementary school, I created a popular zine about unschooling which almost got me expelled, so I moved countries (having learned english through coding forums). After the pandemic, I have mostly been doing online school (including uni).

The current conservative strategy is to remain in school for another semester/year until I solidify the visa status post dropping-out. I don't satisfy the o1 visa criteria yet (duh, I'm not yet exceptional) and am working on it (through publications and grant awards). Are there some other options you would recommend?

Happy to talk more - you can message at x.com/indiraschka