Advice: Should I leave Engineering? Feeling unqualified, any alternative career paths?

I’m in my 3rd year of engineering school right now and truth be told when I came into college, I had a strong passion and really wanted to become a civil engineer, but after almost 3 years of schooling, and greater exposure to the industry, I’ve become doubtful and convinced that engineering might not be for me anymore.

  1. I've pretty much bombed and near-failed almost all of my engineering classes, and it's pretty much only my elective classes that are keeping me standing alive and well. I've already tried hard, but I honestly just don't get most of the concepts, and most of the time I've admittedly been saved because of amazing/close friends helping to step in for me for assignments and last-minute stuff, otherwise I probably would have already failed out long time ago.
  2. Even though I might be able to survive the schooling, I definitely feel my lack of comfort with most of the knowledge is probably going to prevent me from getting far anyway, I won't be able to pass the PE, or any of those license exams since I'm already struggling hard with the schooling itself.
  3. I've heard to become a successful civil/structural engineer you should get a masters, I have no interest/doubt I'll even be able to make it into a masters program based off how I'm doing.
  4. My friend's who've interned and the people I've talked too told me that apparently most of the real-life work is actually spent inside of a cubicle doing calculations or excel all day, I don't feel like that's something I'm going to find really enjoyable.
  5. I realized at the heart, I'm a creative-type who enjoys being outside or around places with a lot of energy. Contrary to the engineering stereotype, I'm also super social and outgoing and I really want a career I can work with people, I'm okay and actually really like public speaking and have a little bit of a teamwork/leader-like personality.

Basically, do you guys think based off of this I should consider leaving the engineering field all together, and lastly if I do say leave engineering, are they’re alternative career paths you might recommend? I’m considering to book engineering all together and settle into a completely new field more aligned with my strengths/interests, but I’m really a bit of a lost path on what to do right now?

You only have one more year to go. Just get it done. Look, although your engineering peers will mostly head off to engineering jobs, many of (or most of) your humanities and social science peers won’t be heading off to a job in their specialty because they don’t have one and there aren’t any. So you will be in the same boat as all of them. Just get the degree. And start thinking about either getting a job while you figure out what further training you want or while you figure out what type of job will work for you. If you were saying you’d discovered your love for, say…accounting…well then I’d suggest changing majors but I don’t hear that from you so just get the degree.

As to points 4 and 5: As a specialty area of civil engineering, construction management jobs will involve a fair amount of time outside, and offices will tend to be in on-site facilities. They will also require working a lot with others and leadership skills even at the entry levels. I also don’t think a Master’s degree would be necessary for entry level positions in construction management.

@lostaccount Yeah I agree completely but the difficult thing is that pretty much most of the alternative careers I’d go for are considered “non-money making” ones. I know based off my skill set and actual classes I’ve taken related to the field, I could never be an accountant, finance analyst, doctor, PhD scholar, or even lawyer, an engineer is pretty much the only high ROI-related career I’d feel really passionate about!

@STEMFamily I think that would actually be awesome, do you know how much school-related knowledge you’d have to know to become that though? I took a cost/econ and a management class which I actually did really well in, but again it’s really the raw design/calculation classes I’ve pretty much all flunked! I’m seeing if I can find any good alternative careers for civil engineer grads more-closely align to my skill set otherwise there’s always the career shift option.

My ideal job is prob one with some travel and movement involved, but also one I can get creative and make stuff, I’m your stereotypical adventurous/outgoing and social but sometimes a bit-weird artsy/music kid!

I do not know the specifics of requirements. What I do know is that back many years, I had an internship on site at the construction of a power plant and I believe most of the full-time engineers I worked with were BS Civil Engineers.

As an alum, I do know that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln offers BS degrees in both Construction Engineering and Construction Management. I know you aren’t interested in the school, but here are the links where you can see what classes are required for those degrees. And, in spite of the fact that these degrees exist, I think most of the jobs are available to Civil Engineers as well. I’m sure some econ/management classes would also be helpful.

http://bulletin.unl.edu/undergraduate/major/Construction+Engineering

http://bulletin.unl.edu/undergraduate/major/Construction+Management

@happyramen In construction management, quite often you will be learning on the job. Some people in the industry, though not an extraordinary number, have degrees unrelated to construction. I’ve known people who had history degrees! If you work on highways & bridges and heavy civil construction, you will find more people with civil engineering degrees. However, if you go towards the building construction side, background vary a lot more. Don’t forget that building construction is a multi-disciplinary field. Not only is there the structure, but there is HVAC equipment, electrical equipment and interior architectural finishes involved too. Nobody has a background in everything; most people will learn quite a few aspects of the industry through experience.

You might make a good sales engineer (sales representative for technical stuff), which, at 70,000 persons, is a fairly large employment field (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/sales-engineers.htm). You should have a bachelor’s degree, ideally, but not necessarily, in engineering or construction management. For this, “cost/econ and a management” classes fit.

Does your school have an Industrial Engineering or Engineering Management major (or minor)? This could be something that appeals more to your temperament and it might be possible to finish a degree (or a minor) in that without too much extra coursework.

Seconding the above, I’d say look into Industrial Engineering or, especially since you like being outside, Construction Engineering/Construction Management. They’re a bit easier than Civil Engineering and you may like it more, so that with just one more semester than with your current studies you may end up with a career you love and where you make money.