Brendon Doran understood engineering, but acoustical engineering?
“I had about as much knowledge as someone who threw together a subwoofer in the back of their car,” he said.
So when Doran, an electrical engineering student at Macomb, obtained an internship offer with a local noise control and soundproofing company through the College’s Career Services department, he was initially skeptical that his skills would translate. Instead, the Sterling Heights native has found that “the physics are virtually identical” and is taking advantage of an opportunity to do hands-on work in high-profile settings. Working with Rochester Hills-based Memtech, he recently had a lead role in building a custom acoustic baffle system for one of the units at the M-1 Concourse, a soon-to-be-opened luxury garage and test track in Pontiac.
“It’s pretty neat, especially in an intern position, to be able to handle something like that,” said Doran, who has also worked on sound projects at the Ford River Rouge Complex.
Doran tried on three different majors at a four-year university before “I realized I was wasting all my money,” he said. So he switched to Macomb and not only is paying “a quarter” the cost, “I can definitely confirm that there’s a lot more 1-on-1 interaction,” he said. “It’s a classroom setting, not a room with 80 people.”
Doran will transfer to Oakland University to complete a bachelor’s degree, something he said he’s “much more prepared” to do now after finding his footing at Macomb. And his internship at Memtech has opened up other work possibilities that “I wouldn’t even be able to come close to getting” without the experience he’s able to show from his job.
“If you’d have told me a year and a half ago that I’d have my hands on something like that, I would have laughed,” he said. “I was literally a doorman in Detroit. Now, this project was my first big step. I can look back and say, ‘I did this.’”