One of my favorite and most impactful classes I took in high school was auto shop. I was one of the lucky last few years (early 2000s) it was even offered, before being dropped entirely.<p>Among all my other AP classes, advanced math, science, literature, music, my one semester of auto shop was the only class that taught me the deep satisfaction of working with my hands. Doing something so immediately tangible. Understanding the intricacy and beauty of mechanical systems.<p>Like many of us on HN my career is in software, where things are so abstract and intangible. I work hard and exercise my mind, but so many days it feels like I have no evidence of progress.<p>That tangible, obvious sense of accomplishment is so lacking it's no wonder that it is such a trope that software developers retire into woodworking or blacksmithing.<p>It is a travesty that these hands-on skills have been dropped from high school curriculums. It truly opened my mind to a whole world I didn't know that I yearned for.