I'm conflicted...

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

I’ll be attending Auburn in the fall and have declared myself a Mechanical Engineering major. I’ve always loved tinkering with things (radios, cars, computers, toys) to see how they work, and my goal right now is to design rockets for NASA or weapons for the Army/Navy. I also really love school and enjoy studying if I have the time.

However, I seem to be facing a few issues: my first stems from horrible experiences in both PreCalculus and Physics my junior year - I made high B’s in both classes, but I didn’t actually learn anything- it just made me less confident in both subjects. This has made me somewhat wary of pursuing an engineering degree, as they are only the first of many difficult building blocks for the major.I have discussed this problem with several engineers from many disciplines, and they tell me “just study really hard, don’t give up on your dream, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it.”

But my second and biggest issue is, I’m not exactly “motivated” in a “it’s my dream” sense because I know it’s not my only option. I’m considering a degree in geology because I’ve loved studying rocks and how earth’s components work, and from what I’ve researched job outlook and median pay is the same, if not better. I’m passionate about both subjects, but geology’s approach to math and physics is slower (I’d take Chemistry first, then Calc/Physics my Sophomore/Junior year instead of my Freshman year if I did ME) and I already understand most of what it’s about.

I think if I got a good professor that I could connect with, I’d be fine in Calculus and Physics, but the big “if” is keeping me up at night. I’m also in the Honors College, so classes will be harder and I will have to maintain a 3.0 GPA all while adjusting to college life. My folks want me to at least try engineering this fall, since AU does “intro to engineering” classes that allow me to explore every discipline offered, but am I really going to be successful if I know an easier route (that I love just as much) is just down the hill? I can picture myself building rockets for NASA, and I absolutely love that picture… But I can also see myself as a “rock nerd” predicting earthquakes out west or researching mineral compositions on asteroids like they’ve been talking about in the news (all outlooks are probably unrealistic, but hey… a girl can dream).

I apologize if this sounds like rambling, but I don’t know how else to word it. I don’t know what to do.

2

The pay you see associated with geology is largely tied to the oil industry, so I wouldn’t count on there being a lot of high-paying geology jobs at the moment.

3

I don’t really care about pay for either career - otherwise, I’d be getting a medical degree :smiley: I was merely using it as a comparison tool.

4

A few observations:

It is probably going to be a lot easier to go from ME to geology than the other way around. If you start in geology and do not like it, you may have to settle for something non-engineering. Going the other way you can probably move into geology later much more easily.

Everyone hates precalc. It’s awful. Calc is much easier. And teaching physics without calc is so dumb that the first thing my high school physics teacher did was teach us all basic calculus. It took 2 weeks, everything made sense after that.

In college, at least for the first couple of years, you can generally pick a professor. Given that every year there are more and more sites that offer unvarnished opinions on the faculty, you should be reasonably able to find instructors you like.

Colleges have lots of support tools out there to help you understand the material, and all but a handful of your peers will need that help too. When you look around the room and it seems like everyone “gets it”, realize that only a few do and the rest are just worried about looking dumb. Disciplined study gets you through.

Stop focusing on the dream jobs. I started in aerospace engineering and had a professor point out that the vast majority of aero jobs at the time were in Wichita, Kansas, working on Pipers and Cessnas and such. Designing rockets and weapons or researching earthquakes and asteroids are awesome jobs, if you can get them, but you should really look and see if you are also happy with the “rank and file” jobs, because statistically that is what you are most likely to get. Not trying to put you down here, I would literally say this to anyone. If the “typical” job in a field bums you out then you should probably not go into that field.

5

Yeah, I’m going to start out in engineering and change (if i want to) from there. If Calculus is needed to understand physics, my struggles make sense now!
And I know I probably won’t get my dream job, but if I don’t picture myself in it I’ll have zero motivation to go to school. I’ll handle a desk job when I get to that point, but for right now picturing myself working at a launch pad will definitely make it easier to crack open the books.