Ahhh.. no. He was stated to have sat 1! paper in it in his early years. That was the whole point of him becoming the Doctors assistant, to highlight they had no one else better qualified than a first term bio student.Rochey wrote: Tom's degree was specificaly stated to have been in biochemistry. Not much use there.
Tom's speciality would have been in other things, most likely something flight or mechanical related.
Weapons were covered by 7 and Tuvok, and its not hard to draw a design going "This is where the weapons will be"Areas that weren't his speciality? You mean like weapons, electronics, power systems, warp drive, fuel containment, nacelles, sensors, targetting systems, life support, artificial gravity, computers, control units, communications equipment, navigation systems, etc, etc, etc?
Electronics is something he seemed to have a rather good grasp on. As is power systems. He might not be able to build a warpcore for a shuttle, but he sure as hell would be able to work out the right sized core for it and leave it to someone else to sort out.
Fuel containment? Add 2 anti matter pods... check. Wow you really need 4 years of study for that.
Nacelles, Tom: "We want this ship to go X fast, have Y agility and be Z sized. Well looks like we need the Binford 6100 Shuttle Nacelles!"
You seem to be working under the illusion Tom needs to know how to BUILD all this crap, no. He just needs to have a basic understanding of it and then think of a clever way to tie it all together, something a pilot would be good at.
Nelix ran and maintained his own ship, which would require a working knowledge of everything you just mentioned, Tom would obviously have far better knowledge than that hedgehog!
You think car designers can build a Transmition? Or do they just know they different types out there and pick one they need and fit it into their design?