Anyone got sick of engineering?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I completely lost interest in engineering as a major and a profession. I have little motivation to truly learn some of the material, especially the intensive mathematics. Some stuff is still pretty cool, like mass transfer and biochemical engineering. Also, after seeing the engineers do their stuff during my co-op terms, I find it hard for me to work as an engineer after graduating.</p>

<p>Maybe I should've majored in business or something. Oh well, I'll suck it up and finish off my last 2 years.</p>

<p>Let's hear some other stories besides my boring one.</p>

2

<p>Well, I hate physics and maths with passion, and yet im an engineering major. And don’t get me started with the computer science subjects I had to take. They were a living hell, which made me seriously think about changing my major. I did pass all the CS classes with a C-. I never understood anything and I would never re-take the classes. I’m just glad I’m done with it.
But I really like my major, just hate a couple of classes thats all.</p>

3

<p>I definitely did not like the college aspect of engineering. Some of the projects were interesting ultimately the kind of engineering job I wanted would not require me to know all of the mathematical details. I interned in a chemical and steel plants. Not very exciting. I now work in fossil power plants and I really enjoy the work. There is a good blend of desk work and field work. There are only a few engineers who are based at the corporate office. We also have a separate project engineering office. </p>

<p>I never once thought about dropping out of engineering even though I hated the school work. I felt that my degree and experience in the work force as an engineer would give me a better stepping stone than majoring in business. I may not know a lot of the business lingo but I get a lot of experience in project management in which I am charge of technical details, the schedule, and most importantly, the budget.</p>

4

<p>

I know someone with a master’s in engineering and a PE who is sick of engineering… He said he’s passion is cooking and is now taking some evening classes in culinary arts. </p>

<p>Just make sure where your passion lies asap, otherwise it’s a waste of time and it’s torture for yourself…</p>

5

<p>The first two years are typically all the core engineering courses and not really the interesting stuff in your discipline (unless it’s different up there where you are). I didn’t really like any of the pure math/physics courses I took, but I was very interested in the ones specific to my major.</p>

<p>How much exposure have you had to the profession? Are you basing your opinion on one co-op term? If so, you should know that not all companies are the same.</p>

6

<p><a href=“http://client.blueskybroadcast.com/siam08/hyman/index.html?vAD=OTk2Nw==&vUS=LTk5&vMP=MA==&vHT=bGl2ZS5ibHVlc2t5YnJvYWRjYXN0LmNvbS8=&vPing=RmFsc2U=&vPICQ=RmFsc2U=[/url]”>http://client.blueskybroadcast.com/siam08/hyman/index.html?vAD=OTk2Nw==&vUS=LTk5&vMP=MA==&vHT=bGl2ZS5ibHVlc2t5YnJvYWRjYXN0LmNvbS8=&vPing=RmFsc2U=&vPICQ=RmFsc2U=&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

7

<p>rheidzan,
I hope you and I don’t work together or know each other strangely. </p>

<p>I am not having fun being an “engineer” and the engineering profession in general. One of my passions is culinary arts and I’ve been pursuing it. I’m about to graduate from culinary school at night (last exam is next week, hurray!). I’ve been looking at programs for Masters in Management Hospitality. </p>

<p>I don’t know if there is any correlation but my major was chemical engineering.</p>

<p>One famous engineer who became a chef that comes to mind would be Ming Tsai.</p>

<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Tsai[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Tsai&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

8

<p>I got sick of engineering after 3 classes, but the prestige of the degree(i liked the challenge, and I wanted to “get my money’s worth”) got me to stay in it. Looking back though, I think if you already know you hate engineering/don’t want to be an engineer, you should switch to something you like, or you could end up doing poorly because of the lack of interests.</p>

9

<p>

LOL… we do… you sit next to my cubicle… </p>

<p>just kidding!</p>

<p>We don’t. My friend is a civil engineer…</p>

10

<p>I have an office but I’ll settle for a kitchen instead. Just give me my culinary tools and I’ll be a happy camper.</p>

<p>There’s a fine line between chef and engineer. </p>

<p>As an engineer, it’s more process structured and creativity is looked down upon (depends on company for sure I would say). Management wants numbers, they want to see you raking in money for the company, after all, businesses are for profits (sans the non-profit sector). </p>

<p>As a chef, I get to create, mix, meld, fuse and layer flavors. I get to express a more creative side and it’s interesting. I joke around with my coworkers, if I get laid off, I’m traveling to France, Australia and Asia to hone my culinary skills.</p>

11

<p>This is pretty common from what I’ve seen. The general trend seems to be that as you get closer and closer to graduation the amount of interest and aspirations in engineering decreases. As an example, it seems to go something like this:</p>

<p>Freshmen - Going to save the world, win a nobel prize, earn a PhD, be the first to walk on Mars, and will have a biography on the History Channel playing every week.
Sophomore - Maybe I won’t have countless biographies written about me, but I’ll still do some amazing work.
Junior - I would just like to get a good job somewhere doing something I’m interested in.
Senior - Get me the hell out of here!</p>

<p>Obviously some people maintain a high level of interest in engineering and go on to earn PhDs, become professors, do engineering work for the rest of their lives, or something along those lines. But it seems that most are content with just graduating and getting a job earning a good amount of money. The passion for engineering disappears and appeasement takes it place.</p>

<p>It’s also possible that you will take some upper level course and find it to be extremely interesting and will want to pursue the subject further. Unfortunately it seems that the level of interest in courses frequently depends on the quality of the professor, so if you have a bad luck of the draw and take an otherwise interesting course with a horrible professor you may not find your “calling.” More likely than that, however, is that you won’t really find anything you care about and will slog through course after course until you are finally handed that piece of paper.</p>

<p>Something to consider is that you may have no true passion and changing your major will not produce a long-term spark of interest in your new field. I do not believe that many people are truly passionate about something, especially for long periods of time, and that obtaining the “job of your dreams” is just that - a dream. This isn’t to say you can’t find something you enjoy doing or at least don’t mind doing, but I think most people will be extremely hard pressed to find something they actually love. </p>

<p>While many will judge this to be an overly pessimistic point of view, I think it’s important to analyze the environment in which students are raised before making such a call. I think the current educational climate fosters unreasonable expectations and self-worth amongst students. From an early age and basically all throughout school, students are basically force fed lines such as “you can do anything you want to do,” “you are special,” “you can make your dreams come true,” and “the world is at your fingertips.” When you hear, and believe, these kinds of things for the first 20 years of your life does it not set up a lot of people for massive disappointment?</p>

<p>Personally, I experienced a substantial decline in my interest in engineering during my time at school. It was similar to my example above, but not necessarily that severe. I did question if I even wanted to be an engineer and started thinking about other things I may be interested in and how to pursue them. During this time I talked with others and did some research on some of the things I was interested in.</p>

<p>I think one of the things that keeps people with engineering is that they feel they have so much time and effort wrapped up into it that it wouldn’t be smart to just “throw it away” by pursuing something such as cooking. Or, the reality that engineering is a good paying field compared to almost everything else is a powerful force that keeps engineering graduates on the engineering path. Additionally, I think there is a bit of aversion to risk taking and adventure.</p>

<p>Ultimately, I decided to stick with engineering. A big part of this was I managed to land a job I believe I will be interested in for years to comes. The work is also meaningful and the people I will be working with will be top notch. Had it not been for this job I’m not sure what I would have done; working at some engineering job I had no interest in for a few years to save up some money is a likely outcome.</p>

<p>I don’t know if I’ll remain an engineer for the rest of my life or decide to eventually do something else. I’ll take it one year/month/day at a time and see what opportunities present themselves rather than try to forecast where I’ll be in 10, 15, or 20 years. For now I’ll see where engineering takes me.</p>