The NASA Engineer Who Says STEM Education Has It Backwards

Ilya Josefson designs electronics for space missions and believes we're teaching engineering all wrong

Ilya Josefson checks his employment status daily these days. As an electronics packaging engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he's watching the Trump administration shake up federal agencies with unprecedented cuts.

"As of 7:42 p.m., I'm still an employee of NASA JPL," he says with dark humor. "We'll see if that changes tomorrow."

But Josefson's concerns go deeper than job security. After seven years at NASA and five years at SpaceX before that, he's convinced American STEM education is fundamentally broken—and it's not because of funding cuts or outdated equipment.

The problem, he argues, is that we're teaching engineering backwards.

From Kiteboarding to Rocket Science

Josefson's path to NASA wasn't traditional. Before designing electronics that survive the harsh environments of space, he was a kiteboard instructor. The transition might seem dramatic, but it illustrates his core philosophy: hands-on experience trumps theoretical knowledge every time.

"I wasn't really interested in circuits growing up," he admits. "I was more like, let me build a thing, let me test it out. I just want to get my hands dirty and understand how things come together."

That practical approach served him well at SpaceX, where he learned that sophisticated designs often fail at the component level—not because the theory was wrong, but because a specific resistor got too hot or leads melted off circuit boards.

"A lot of designs would fail at the component level, not even the board level," he explains. "Like a specific component would either pop off the board or get too hot or the leads would melt off and break off."

The Academia-Industry Gap

Josefson went back to graduate school while working at SpaceX—a decision he doesn't recommend to anyone. But the experience gave him insights into what he calls the fundamental disconnect between academic learning and real-world application.

"There's this funny meme where the stuff you learn in school is all these really intense calculus equations, and then what you use in industry is just like a one line in a spreadsheet," he says. "And it's pretty true."

The deeper problem isn't that academic knowledge is useless—it's that students learn it without understanding why they need it. Professors, especially research-focused ones, get students "real deep into that world" of theoretical knowledge without connecting it to practical problems.

"If you're not careful, you end up learning some things that aren't that applicable," Josefson warns. "You'll have really deep knowledge about something that you really could just have popped into ChatGPT."

The Soft Skills Revelation

Now a manager at NASA, Josefson has discovered something that might surprise engineering students: technical skills aren't the main differentiator in STEM careers.

"The qualities that I've seen help propel people further than anything are not technical at all," he says. "I could take somebody that has no technical skill and show them how to run CAD and run finite element analysis if they have the drive and are really good about taking ownership and solving things all the way through."

Meanwhile, highly technical engineers who lack drive, ownership, and follow-through "end up being not as good workers essentially."

The secret ingredient? Passion and engagement.

"If you can almost convince yourself that what you're doing is really interesting and really cool, it changes your brainwaves," Josefson explains. "All of a sudden you're hyper engaged and you're asking all the right questions. Just that basic principle of asking questions and being engaged—automatically you are better than half the people there."

The Problem with Perfectionism

Josefson's biggest criticism of STEM education is its obsession with getting things perfect rather than encouraging learning through failure.

"This hyper fixation on the perfect grade I think is pretty toxic," he says. "Especially when you're learning new things. Failing is totally fine if you learn and fix it."

Academia treats failure as evidence of personal inadequacy, but in rocketry and engineering, "the biggest lessons you learn are from failures." The key is developing resilience and learning to separate yourself from the failure.

"You have to learn how to separate yourself from the failure and just allow it to be like, okay, this thing happened that failed. How do I build from it?"

Teaching Problem-Solving, Not Formulas

Josefson's solution to fixing STEM education is deceptively simple: start with problems, not theories.

The best professors he encountered didn't begin with calculus derivations. Instead, "they basically gave you a problem set and were like, this is what we're trying to do. If you're gonna do this, how would you try to tackle that problem?"

Only after students understand the practical challenge do they dive into the mathematical tools needed to solve it.

"You want to set it up in such a way where you are trying to do a thing, and what are the inputs that you need and what are the questions you need answered for you to do that thing," he explains. "Academia tends to go the other way."

The Learning Through Play Revolution

Recent research has confirmed something Josefson discovered through experience: turning learning into play accelerates understanding.

"If you turn things into play, you learn quicker and you learn faster," he says. "If you're really regimented and you force yourself to do something, you're not going to learn as fast and it's not going to be as enjoyable."

His advice for students? Build things. Start with Arduino kits or Google's electronics projects. "Get your hands dirty and try to build something. Understand and see where you get stuck and where the big problems are."

Following the Money

Working in an industry dependent on government funding has taught Josefson a crucial lesson often overlooked in STEM education: understanding where your paycheck comes from.

"You always want to follow the money a little bit," he advises. "You want to ask where the money comes from, who you're selling to, who your customer is, and you want to have a basic idea of what that pipeline is."

This isn't about cynicism—it's about resilience. Industries change rapidly, and professionals who understand the economic forces shaping their field can adapt when disruption comes.

"If you keep yourself open and build up your skill set to be transferable, you can bring the knowledge base and the way you've done things in one domain and bring it to another and really thrive."

The Network Effect

Perhaps most importantly, Josefson wishes someone had told him earlier about the power of networking and mentorship.

"Every job that I've ever gotten in life was always through either knowing somebody or meeting somebody and having that personal connection," he reveals.

He got into the space industry through a friend he met skiing, who dated someone at SpaceX during a hiring surge. "It was a lot of luck was involved there," he admits, but the connection only mattered because he was prepared to take advantage of it.

A recent mentor at JPL encouraged him to apply for a software engineering position despite his hardware background—advice that opened new career possibilities he hadn't considered.

Staying Curious in Uncertain Times

As government funding for science faces unprecedented cuts, Josefson remains optimistic about STEM careers—with caveats.

"Just try a bunch of things, especially when you're in school," he urges students. "We kind of lost sight of school as just an avenue for learning and trying things and really lighting yourself up."

Instead of hyperfocusing on grades and perfection, students should embrace curiosity. Take courses in completely unrelated fields. Follow interesting YouTube videos or TikToks down rabbit holes.

"Staying curious and staying engaged is the name of the game for sure."

What Engineering Really Means

For Josefson, engineering isn't about rockets or circuits or even technical expertise. It's a fundamental approach to understanding the world.

"Engineering is just a methodology for breaking up really complex problems and really complex things, breaking them up into smaller constituent problems, and then combining the solutions of all those into the bigger thing," he explains.

That methodology applies everywhere—from film directors planning shoots to musicians composing songs. "It's a really powerful mindset. It's a really powerful tool to understand our place in the universe."

Lessons for Education Reform

Josefson's experience points toward specific reforms that could transform STEM education:

Start with problems, not formulas. Give students real challenges before teaching them the mathematical tools to solve them.

Embrace failure as learning. Stop penalizing mistakes and start celebrating the lessons they provide.

Emphasize hands-on building. Theory without practice creates graduates who can't apply their knowledge.

Develop soft skills. Teach curiosity, persistence, and problem-solving alongside technical content.

Connect to real-world applications. Help students understand why they're learning specific concepts and how they'll use them.

The stakes couldn't be higher. As America faces challenges from climate change to space exploration to artificial intelligence, we need engineers who can think creatively, adapt quickly, and solve problems they've never seen before.

That requires moving beyond the current system of memorizing formulas and regurgitating theories. It means preparing students for a world where the problems are complex, the solutions are uncertain, and success depends as much on curiosity and resilience as on technical knowledge.

Josefson's journey from kiteboard instructor to NASA engineer proves it's possible. The question is whether American education is ready to follow his lead.

Ilya Josefson is an electronics packaging engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering and has worked on space missions for over a decade.

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