Aerospace Engineer Named Lego Czar

24-year-old Cal Walsh has put his aerospace engineering degree to good use by becoming the Lego Czar at The Legoland Discovery Center in Texas. Walsh beat out over 100 other Lego lovers for the $37,500 starting salary, and the chance to play with blocks for a living. From the article: "The 15 finalists were given an hour to design something that defined them and their interests. Walsh applied his engineering skills to build a spaceship, a unicycle and a running shoe that spelled out his first name. He gave credit to the children spectators at the event, who offered suggestions on what pieces to add to make the designs more interesting."

Comments

Pathetic

[Animats]

$37,500 starting salary... (Stupid new Slashdot layout breaks italics.)

With an engineering degree and experience. Pathetic.

Re:Pathetic

[hbean]

37,500 is pretty decent to have fun and play with legos for a few years, rather than work at some soul crushing corporate job.

Re:Pathetic

[natehoy]

He graduated a year ago, so his experience was looking for a job for a year, unsuccessfully I might add. You might have noticed that the economy is blowing steaming stinky glowing green monkey chunks at the moment.

He might have garnered his degree into something with a starting wage somewhat higher, or he could have languished in the job market for another year or two and decided to give up and step out in front of a bus some day.

Instead, he found something that he thought he'd love doing that covers his expenses and went for it.

It's not all about the money for all of us, you know.

Re:Pathetic

[Jahava]

Not so much considering he gets to play with Lego bricks all day long. It may be a waste of his talent, but hell, who cares if he enjoys it.

How much do you earn and is your job as entertaining as his will be?

I'd quit my (better payed) job not thinking twice if I get offered that position.

Here's a thought: get an engineering job, make three times that much in one year, and then take the next two years off to play with Legos.

Re:Pathetic

[squareroottwo]

It wasn't too long ago that I was hired for my first real job out of college for $37,500/yr with benefits. The video game studio position was lower salaried than other jobs I could have had. (I even turned down one.) I didn't make the wrong choice, despite holding multiple college level degrees. I had a blast, I learned skills I didn't expect, and I'm better for it. The only things pathetic in this story are reactions like yours revealing how money is the only thing to chase in so many peoples' eyes.

Re:Pathetic

[Nadaka]

Interesting. except doing that gets you exactly the same amount of money and only 2 years of lego play instead of 3. It also does not account for the fact that you would have to buy your own lego's.

Re:For building that?

[Anonymous Psychopath]

OK, maybe I was too harsh. He only had an hour.

The article notes that it wasn't so much about what he built as how he did it; by interacting with the kids and incorporating their suggestions into his design.