How did Ferren learn about engineering, if not in school? How might this have been similar to how the ancient cultures learned engineering?

Bran Ferren learn about engineering because of his childhood fascination with electronics and machines. He used to experiment on his own about how electronics is used in daily living. Hence, his way of non-institutional learning of electronics is similar to how ancient cultures discovered engineering sciences without going to schools.

Explanation:

Bran Ferren visited Rome at the age of nine years to see pantheon. He began to discover since childhood that how art and engineering can be put together to create design and beauty. He was taught by his father that art is not just decoration but a way to bridge knowledge and insight. His father has worked immensely in the progression of modern artistic expressions. However, Bran was more crazy about electronics and machines as compared to arts. He kept discovering new ways of making machines work and building new modern machines. He did not learn about machine engineering from school but by working with machines manually for hours and studying complex electronic devices.