<p>here's an interesting question. as an engineer/engineering student, do you actually ENJOY what you're learning/doing? do you have a legitimate interest in math and science? or are you studying it based on the job opportunities? i'm just curious about different people's rationale for deciding on engineering.</p>
<p>I enjoy most of it, not all of it. I don’t really care much for math. I find a lot of it very boring but I can trudge through it. What I do enjoy is the science aspect of it, learning concepts that allow me to understand the world and phenomena around me. Beyond understanding I really like to use those concepts to problem solve. I believe that is what separates a scientist from an engineer, prioritizing problem solving over discovery. There are other aspects like the money and job offerings that make it more palatable, but there’s no way I could make it through all the rigor without a genuine interest in the material.</p>
<p>Not really a passion for me. There’s some subjects that interest me and than there’s some I hate. I feel like I’m the opposite of Elevate. I’m more interested in the theoretical type of math rather than applying it. I don’t know why, but that’s just how I am. I guess I would be more fit to be a math teacher or professor, but I want to make a lot of money asap so that I can pay for all my expensive hobbies.</p>
<p>I like lots of fields such as business, economics, engineering, and cooking, but I settled on engineering for undergraduate because of the versatility and opportunities. An engineering student can do anything or go anywhere. It is a good degree to have in general regardless of a specific career. Obviously most engineering students practice engineering or start out with an engineering career, but I think many break into other fields at least partially.</p>
<p>There was another thread or two on the subject not that long ago:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1088372-all-engineering-majors-money.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1088372-all-engineering-majors-money.html</a></p>
<p>While it seemed that many of those posting in that thread chose their majors purely for careerist or vocational reasons while not really enjoying learning the material, it was not the case for me.</p>
<p>My best subjects in K-12 were math and science, and I have an interest in computers. That engineering and computer science also happened to have decent career aspects meant not having to make a trade-off between doing something that I liked and doing something to get a job.</p>
<p>Yea I also agree with Engineerjw and ucbalumnus. If you major in engineering and decide you like it than you can get a job as an engineer. If not many different fields will hire someone with an engineering degree. Generally you will at least have to be pretty good at math and science classes or be a really hard worker to make up for it.</p>
<p>I enjoyed most of my junior, senior and graduate level courses. I wouldn’t say I had a significant interest in math or the fundamental science courses; they were more like a means to an end.</p>
<p>There will always be some courses that one likes more than others and some tasks at the job that one likes more than others.</p>
<p>As far as math, ummm…I did not care too much for vectors nor partial differential equations. Then again, I loved going to my numerical analysis courses.</p>
<p>As for my job…I work on databases. Now when I was in the non-defense world, firms had separate jobs (persons) to handle the design/development and administration. In the defense world (at least at NSA), the two jobs are combined as one. Now I also handle administration but not always happy because there are deep details of database administration that I really do not care for and wish I could just yell over the cube to a DBA to handle.</p>
<p>I became an engineer because I was good at math and science, and when I started college (2005) it was a guaranteed job placement upon graduation (and I didn’t know what else to do…) But the truth is, I don’t necessarily enjoy it anymore. The problem solving and learning-how-things-work aspects were exciting for a while, but for me, at least, engineering is not a passion, and is now more of a means to a secure job and paycheck.</p>
<p>I agree 100% of the above post.</p>
<p>Most of the people does it for the job security and not for the education. </p>
<p>But I have never regretted in choosing engineering as my education since the job opportunities are great and the pay is great. </p>
<p>Plus when you get to 4th year, and when you wear the engineer ring ( I am from Canada so I don’t know if u guys had a ring), you will feel a strong sense of pride regardless if you have passion or not for making this far in engineering.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I take it your choice of engineering was not civil engineering. Those starting civil engineering in 2005 graduated into probably the worst downturn for the field in a generation or more.</p>
<p>I enjoyed about 90% of the courses I’ve taken so far (I’m a sophomore btw), even some of the gen. ed. ones, lol.
If one doesn’t enjoy math or science and want to do engineering, well, it’s going to suck.
Personally, I think it’s silly to do engineering for job security, there’s never no such thing as job security if you are not a head and shoulder above everybody else.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I never got my ring. I was too lazy to go get sized, lol. It seemed really cheesy as well. I’m not into keepsakes like that.</p>
<p>@Elevate what you said about not having a genuine interest in it, i’m having a hard time with that right now. The technical classes of mine (chemistry, calculus, computer science) are all pretty bad. I have zero desire to learn any of the course content because i simply do not find it interesting. i guess what i was wondering was if anyone had a legitimate interest in any of the above topics i mentioned. i can’t imagine ever wanting to learn the things im learning, but i could be wrong. where many of you have said you liked certain parts but disliked others, was there a certain aspect about the parts you liked that you personally like outside of classes? like after college would you still want to learn about them?</p>
<p>bass, the upper level Engineering classes do get much more interesting than the initial Chemistry, calculus and CS courses that you have taken.</p>
<p>It is cheesy lol. I am already one of the few who doesn’t wear it everyday because the ring is a bit big for me. </p>
<p>But what I am trying to say is that whether you like engineer courses or not, you would still feel proud of yourself in going this far.</p>
<p>Also, did you attend the ring ceremony? You know that you would save your first year membership fees by going right?</p>
<p>Bengineer, I believe you are talking about the Order of the Engineer. Yes it exists in the U.S. as well.</p>
<p>bass332, I didn’t like the fundamental courses as much (mainly the first 2 years). The courses that directly related to my field and the work I would be doing was much more interesting to me. Nowadays since I’m out of school, I have subscriptions to magazines from professional organizations, have bought books related to my field of study, etc.</p>
<p>Well I don’t have a passion for math or science that’s for sure. Didn’t really enjoy any classes in my first two years. My favorite classes were my electives in economics.</p>
<p>I don’t think an engineer needs to have a passion for mathematics. An engineer just needs to apply mathematical techniques to help with technical solutions.</p>
<p>Now us geeky math majors are the ones who want to write a C++/Java program to emulate the “power method” to find real eigenvalues probably need a little more passion.</p>
<p>:-)</p>
<p>
you<em>of</em>eh, you will find that the engineering courses that you will take junior and senior year are much more interesting than the math and science courses that you are taking freshman and sophomore years. Much more interesting.</p>