Engineering Harmony
Daniel Gomez '09, a music and physics major at Colby, is pursuing his interest in engineering through the Colby/Dartmouth dual-degree program.
Pop quiz. Which of these doesn’t belong: physics, music, or engineering? If you guessed music, you’re right—and wrong. Daniel Gomez ’09 used to think his interests in science and music might not mix into one career path. Then he discovered the Colby/Dartmouth dual-degree program.
For Gomez, college has been about finding a balance. “The extremes don’t appeal to me,” he said. Instead of focusing only on his interest in physics or his love of music, Gomez found a way to
blend his passions. He spent his first two years at Colby focusing on music and physics, then went to Dartmouth for his junior year to work on an engineering degree. After he graduates from Colby this year he’ll be back at Dartmouth for one more year. When he’s done he’ll have two degrees—a bachelor of arts in music and physics, and a bachelor of science in engineering—that he hopes to apply to a career in acoustical engineering. “That was one of the advantages of coming here,” he said. “I can actually do both.”
At 15, Gomez helped his brother with a science project about sound editing and began to see how science and music could be connected. He watched as his brother took songs that were not played on he piano and used a program called Cubase to make them sound like they were. “We both played the guitar,” he said, “but the computer could play any instrument we wanted.”
The son of a civil engineer, Gomez was always drawn to science—particularly math and physics—while growing up in Bogotá, Colombia. But while attending Mahindra United World College of India, he was introduced to different types of music. He found himself interested in this seemingly opposite field. “I started getting really excited about other kinds of music,” he said. “There was just way too much that I did not have access to when I was back home, and so I started getting into Arabic music and Indian music and African music and really got a passion for it.”
After enrolling at Colby, Gomez decided to explore both interests, double majoring in physics and music. Because he was drawn to engineering, the Colby/Dartmouth program was a perfect fit. Interested students apply during their sophomore year at Colby. Those accepted spend their junior year Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and return for a final year at Dartmouth after graduating from Colby.
At Dartmouth, “The coolest class I took was called Control Theory,” Gomez said. “It was basically just designing feedback loops, and it is the basis for robotics and artificial intelligence systems.” Students worked on projects ranging from levitating a ball to designing an
audio speaker.
Courses like these also taught Gomez more about acoustical engineering, which “deals with sounds and the engineering behind any noise,” he said. Acoustical engineers can work in a variety of fields, such as managing noise caused by generators or machinery and developing sound systems for theaters and stadiums. “Acoustical engineering seemed like a middle ground between art and science,” he said. “It shows my more creative side and brings together these two opposites.”
The program has given him hands-on experience. He cites the two-term project that he and his fellow fifth-year students will work on next year as an example. In teams of four, engineering students work together on a project for a company. Students are “pretty much used as employees,” said Gomez, but they receive experience and academic credit for their time.
Switching schools midway through Colby, Gomez concedes, was sort of weird—“We were juniors, but at the same time, we were kind of freshman”—but he believes that this unconventional approach was worth it. Gomez says the program helped him to gain stronger critical thinking skills and a “different set of tools” than someone who attended only an engineering school. Though he is not completely sure where he is headed following his graduation from Dartmouth in 2010, he is considering pursuing a master’s degree at Dartmouth either in science, engineering management, or electro-acoustic music.
Competition for the dual-degree program is stiff (Dartmouth only accepts 25 students), but Colby students do well. While in previous years 10 or fewer Colby students have generally applied, with roughly all being accepted, this year a record 17 applied to the program and 13 were accepted, said Colby Professor of Physics and Astronomy Virginia Long, who serves as advisor to students in the program.
As for Gomez, no matter where he winds up following his graduation from Colby and Dartmouth, the work that he has done at both schools ensures that his future is sound.
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