The Career Grant Imahara Almost Chose Instead Of Engineering
Grant Imahara, who rose to fame as one of the members of the Build Team in Discovery Channel's "MythBusters," was a roboticist and electrical engineer, and joined the show's third season in 2005. Along with other Build Team members, Tory Belleci and Kari Byron, Imahara was responsible for setting up and conducting experiments, building contraptions, and using his scientific and engineering skills to aid hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage to prove or disprove theories.
Although it was evident in the show that Imahara was born for tinkering and experimenting, not a lot of people know that he almost veered away from that career path to pursue something else entirely — writing.
Imahara graduated with a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). However, there came a time when he thought that a future in engineering wouldn't be exciting.
According to USC News, Grant Imahara quit all of his classes in his sophomore year at the university since he wanted to try his hand at screenwriting. Writing was something he learned he was good at in high school, when his advanced composition teacher encouraged him to hone his skills. And for someone who was effortlessly funny and always smiling on-screen, Imahara was interested in writing dramas.
Grant Imahara's engineering journey
His idea to switch majors, however, didn't work out as he had planned, as it wasn't easy as he thought to transfer to the competitive cinematic arts program at USC. After a lengthy discussion with a counselor, Imahara was directed to Tomlinson Holman, the inventor of THX, and he volunteered to be his assistant at no cost (via USC).
Perhaps it was a change in environment and Holman's mentorship that renewed Grant's love for engineering. He started working on measly tasks such as organizing files, and he eventually progressed to advanced work such as helping in the process of developing headphones. Imahara went back to finish his engineering course and graduated in 1993 (via The Hollywood Reporter.)
From then on, Grant Imahara dedicated his life to engineering and had an exciting career, which included being an official operator for R2-D2 in some "Star Wars" movies, starring in "MythBusters" for almost 10 years, and competing in "BattleBots" with his robot Deathblow just to name a few accomplishments.
Grant Imahara died of a brain aneurysm at 49 years old. Although he was gone too soon, he surely made his mark in the engineering world and beyond.