I absolutely hate engineering, but I'm almost 2 years already into it, any advice?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

I’m 19 years old and I’m currently studying mechatronics engineering on college, and I absolutely hate it. It’s not that I suddenly started to hate it, to be brutally honest, I realised I hate it when I was already in second semester, but I thought “Maybe I just hate the core classes, you know, what all engineers need to take, once I get to my degree classes, it’ll get better!”, yeah well, it turned out to be even worse. I absolutely hate mechanics, physics, diff eq, and so on (you know… classes I’m supposed to enjoy because they are degree oriented). The only subject I really enjoy and I’m really good at it is programming (OOP, web design, server management, etc.). But guess what? I don’t want to be a programmer either, even though I enjoy it and I’m good at it, I don’t like working as a programmer (I have worked as one), it’s just a tedious, unfullfilling and lonely work, and I don’t want to sit down 8 hours a day infront a computer and write tons of coding lines for nothing. Yeah, the pay is good, but I rather be happy than have a lot of money, I don’t care about the money, as long as I can live good (pay food, rent and maybe a car), I’m ok.

I completely agree I never did a full research before deciding what degree I wanted. I just heard “engineering”, it sounded interesting to me, I was told they had high salaries, and decided to submit to it on 2 different universities (I only got into one).

So I’m sure what I’m going to do, I’m going to finish this semester (whether I finish in a good way or not) then I’m going to take a semester off just to work, and after this I’m going to decide what route to take. I’m thinking very seriously into medicine or any health related degree, it’s something I really see myself doing it, and I would really like to work at a hospital and being able to help people. I’m not interested on the research part of medicine, just the practical part. The only reason that’s stopping me from applying right now it’s that it’d take me 5 more years to graduate as a General Surgeon (“Médico Cirujano General” in my native spanish) and then 2 or 3 years to get a speciality (I’d love pediatrics), and college is free in my country (it’s like 200 USD the semester) so I don’t have an economic problem, it’s just an age related concern.

So my question is… am I a failure for all of this that happened to me? I know I’m the only reason for these failures, so it feels like crap.

I’m luckily enough that my mother supports me, and she told me that whatever route I want to take from now it’s on me, but she won’t accept another “I hate my degree again”, so I need to be totally sure of what I’m going to do. Any advice?

PD: Sorry for my bad english, I’m a native spanish speaker trying to learn english.

2

Your English isn’t bad at all!

If money isn’t an issue because you’re studying in your native country, maybe an option could be taking a year off of school to volunteer at a hospital or shadow
doctors or something like that. Some way to find out if you really want to go into medicine.

I wouldn’t worry about age. There are plenty of actual middle-aged adults who decide to pursue medicine. Good luck!!

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You are NOT too old to change your major. Taking more of what you don’t like isn’t going to make you like it.

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Is your concern getting through the next two years? Or your career years? There are many different jobs you can have as an engineer. Some won’t use much of your engineering academics.

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My husband also disliked the technical side of engineering and went into sales, working in the business development department of one of the largest engineering consulting firms in the world. He enjoyed the travel and interaction with clients.

I agree with Colorado Mom that there are options that don’t follow the technical path.

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Not at all. You’re actually doing the brave thing by being realistic with yourself. It’s not too late to switch, for goodness sakes you’re only 19 years old. And all the knowledge you have accrued in college is part of your foundation, even if you don’t become an engineer. Since you are interested in clinical medicine, maybe look for opportunities to work with doctors and patients…ie Doctors Without Borders, or a clinic. You are blessed to have a mother that supports you in this way, just be sure medicine is truly what you want. Best of luck to you.

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@colorado_mom My concern is that I still have 3.5 years to finish engineering, and I’ve been feeling miserable for the last year I’ve been here. So I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do engineering anymore. I know I could just stick with it, but I’m pretty sure it would be a waste if I end up not doing engineering. The same thing happened to my mom, she didn’t like architecture, but stick to it. Finished it but never actually worked as an architect, that’s why she’s being very supportive with me, she knows why I’m going through.

I don’t think I can continue with this degree at all, sometimes I think it’s also because of my college, some people say it’s the best college in my city, but from my point of view it’s one of the worst. We don’t have any laboratories, the machines and equipment we are suppose to learn with are so old and antique that the teachers tell us to watch YouTube videos instead. This is not the college I want, this is not the career I want and I know I sound a little stubborn or immature, but I don’t want to continue with this anymore. I’ve also seen the workplaces of some engineers and I just don’t want to do that, it’s not just the academics.

The only concern is that I don’t want to make the same mistake again, but I’m pretty sure about pursuing a Medical Degree. I’m already looking for some internship, volunteer or any opportunity to be inside the medical area, you know, like a hospital or emergencies, or whatever. My girlfriend is a technical nurse (is about to enter college to get a professional degree in nursing and then continue with medicine) and I get to see some of the stuff she does and I really like it, but I don’t want to be a nurse, I want to be a doctor (or physician as in english, in spanish we call them “doctores” or “médicos”), I want to interact with people and actually know what’s happening to them. I love how my classmates enjoy the huge amount of free time just to play videogames or whatever, and most of them are on engineering just because of that, the good pay and loads of free time. I don’t actually like this, I don’t like to play videogames the whole day and have tons of free time to do nothing, it’s just a waste. And I have a part time job just to keep me busy, because I can’t stand the home-college-home route.

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I’ve been in the same position, and I think you should stick with it to the end. There are many ugly and unpleasant sides to engineering that most people here and in the academic system (i.e. people who benefit if you are an engineering student) won’t really talk about, but I’m sure you’ve seen it yourself.

My suggestion is this: fulfill all the major requirements to finish MechE, but for the rest of your classes, take whatever else you find more satisfying (biology/medicine classes perhaps?). Two major reasons for this:

  1. You are a bit too far into the program to switch without losing time. And you might do the same with the next degree anyways.
  2. No matter where you end up, it’s always useful to be able to say that you have experience in engineering.

As far as working at a hospital goes, most large hospitals have volunteer programs, and you don’t necessarily have to have experience. I’ve worked at one before, and it wasn’t exactly difficult or competitive to volunteer there.

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So you are 2 years into it… but have 3.5 years left? Maybe it would make sense to switch. You sound unhappy.

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I would switch right away. It’s not worth it. I wonder why you didn’t switch sooner.

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Actually if this is the case, then yes, switch.

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@DrGoogle I didn’t switch sooner because I thought I was going through just some hard times. But now, I just hate it. I will quit this engineering school, because there’s no way I can pursue a health-related degree here, it only offers some engineering degrees and architecture. I will finish this semester, then I’m going to drop out (or quit) this school and request my courses letter (it’s some kind of letter that says I already completed 4 semesters of mechatronics engineering, in case I want to continue somewhere else). Then I’ll come back to home (I go to college 5 hours away from my hometown) and get a job, just to survive for 4-6 months before I apply to medical school. I’m already looking for any kind of internship or opportunity to shadow doctors or an emergency room or whatever, seriously, whatever that puts me inside the medical scene. I just need to verify that I have a real passion with medicine, because I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I really see myself going through medicine, I really like all the subjects I’d need to study. I compare my engineering plan vs medicine plan and I absolutely like medicine way more. If I fail again, my mother won’t support me anymore, and I agree with that, I don’t want nor can fail again. I’m already doing a lot of research about this degree and the kind of life physicians have. Most of my relatives are doctors (pediatrics, surgeons, and a traumatologist) so I get a small look of what they do, and I really like it. The only thing I’m actually worry about, is that I have shaky hands when I’m nervous or stressed, so that scares me a little from surgery, but I guess I just need to learn to control my stress or nervousness.

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That seems like a reasonable plan. My guess is that you are in a country where you can apply to medical school directly from high school, is that correct? While you might not be given much credit for the engineering courses you have taken, don’t think that your time has been completely wasted. The way you have learned to think about problems as an engineer can be useful to you as a physician.

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Sound like a good plan. I have a brother who went through engineering school, he didn’t hate it but he didn’t love it either. He did work a few years and saved some money and went to medical school. He took part time study at UCLA to raise his GPA because he had crappy one. But he did end up being a doctor and has been very happy.
So good luck with your plan. Also you don’t need to be a surgeon either. My niece was dead set on being a surgeon but now after finishing medical school, she changed her mind, she just want to be a regular MD.

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@xraymancs Yes, I’m in a country where as far I have the high school diploma (“preparatoria” in my native spanish) I can apply to whatever university or school I want, either is medical, engineering or any school. I do not see my 2 years of engineering as a waste, because although I won’t become an engineer, all the math and physics and some other useful classes (programming) actually helped me to get some temporary jobs, and algebra, math and statistics would be way more easy now. I’m now used to study a lot, so I won’t have problem with this.

@DrGoogle Thank you so much for your comment, and for sharing that story. I’m pretty sure of what I want to do, I’m just afraid, you know, about making the same mistake again. I feel way more committed right now than I was when starting this engineering degree.

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Good luck to you then. My son also switched from physics to biology after 2.5 years and he is now finishing his Ph.D. in biology and the physics has been useful to him the entire time.

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Thank you so much your all your good comments, they helped me to get me back to reality and actually understand what I need to do.

I hope this post helps other people that are in a similar situation.
Now I can’t wait to enter medical school!

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Update:
I dropped out from engineering school. Now I’m looking forward to apply to 2 different medical schools.

Also I’ve been doing some shadowing and volunteer work on some local hospitals. I even got the opportunity to shadow 4 surgeries and support at one!! And I’m not even a medical student! I absolutely loved it. I can’t wait to start medical school right now. Right now I’m looking for a temporary job until I apply.

If I do everything well, on January 2016 or August 2016 I’d become a medical student! It’s up to me.

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Congrats and good luck!!

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Best of luck to you. Also, hate to be a bit of a bummer, but I’d like to say that you really should be sure to have a viable “safe” backup plan in case your goals of getting into med school don’t pan out (seems that it’s structured differently in your country, but it’s either expensive or competitive in every country I know of), or it just doesn’t end up being any better than engineering.