" I’ve yet to meet an engineer who is not a slave to the 9-5 + daily grind and I don’t think any of them are particularly happy." - my engineer H. is working much more than 9 - 5 and he likes his job a lot and all people at his work seem to be a happy bunch. He works for small but prominent on the international market engineering firm. We go to his office parties on a regular basis, there are lots of people there who have been there for few decades and some do not want to retire at all, They have an engineer who, I believe is in his 80s and just remembers everything, they consult with him when they do not want to search on computer or some older project may not be on their data base at all. Everybody is so friendly, very happy bunch and so are many other engineers that we know who feel the same.
Earning potential is not anywhere near like MD or so, you got to be in a very high position while many engineering firms are small and do not have much of the vertical organization. They seem to enjoy their job though…But you got to love it, for sure and the love of math and sciences is NOT an indication that you will enjoy engineering at all. I know, it was my reason for choosing engineering, and I was OK academically, but I did not like the job at all and after 11 years of working in a wrong for me field, I said, enough is enough and switched to CS. love this one with all my heart, it is nice to feel that you belong, it makes your every day happy…