How does it work? For John Desjarlais, that question led him to a concentration in mechanical engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. Still, he didn’t come to that decision until several years after high school, so he was 31 by the time he completed his first degree. Desjarlais, Cree-Métis, had already earned a certificate in radiation environmental monitoring and worked professionally. But his childhood interest in the physical world and how things move — how they work — coupled with his enjoyment of math and physics, brought him back to mechanical engineering.