<p>psuKinger, thank you :)</p>
<p>You guys are wasting your breath. Golub is a massive troll. I remember him acting like this in other threads. The fact is, he has knocked this thread off course, so dont bother trying to argue with him, because he is too dense to listen.</p>
<p>"Golub is a massive troll"</p>
<p>...dude, if I'm trolling then just ignore me. Stating facts that strike peoples nerves is NOT trolling...it's a dose of reality for those who want to live in bubbles.</p>
<p><em>STOMP</em>!!</p>
<p>TrollStomper STOMP TROLLS. Golubb STOMP'D.</p>
<p>-"...dude, if I'm trolling then just ignore me. Stating facts that strike peoples nerves is NOT trolling...it's a dose of reality for those who want to live in bubbles."</p>
<p>stating facts requires evidence...</p>
<p>do you have any to support your claims?</p>
<p>All I've seen is a heavy dose of opinions... not that there's anything wrong with having opinions, or sharing them on a message board like this. But you can't really call them "facts" unless you can prove them...</p>
<p>maybe you guys should realize that just how not everyone wants to go to medical school, not everyone thinks that spending all their time cooped up in their dorm and classes studying (whether or not they find it interesting) is worth it
like the starter of this thread i too would like to know: if i go into a field like computer science will it mean that i have to make a choice between going out and sitting alone to get an A? because the second one would make me feel miserable, regardless whether i like what im learning ESPECIALLY if after that you get treated like **** by managers and have no upwards mobility (a lot of people here talk about MBAs but how many engineers get those and then get paid salaries comparative to the medical field?)</p>
<p>Hey- once you decide to become an engineer, lawyer or doctor- you are going to have to sacrifice a lot more than you are used to.</p>
<p>For fae -- there are a couple of things to consider here.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Not every computer science major (or whatever) spends all of his/her time studying. Obviously, it depends on the interplay between the school you go to and how talented you are in CS -- if you go to a very very hard school, but are only moderately talented, you will have to work very hard to get good grades. If you are phenomenally talented, you will probably not have to work so hard.</p></li>
<li><p>The definition of spending "all your time" studying. Even people who go to difficult schools and take difficult majors have free time. As long as you can manage your time wisely, there's nothing stopping you from going out a few nights a week. You just have to recognize that some weeks are harder than others, and perhaps one week you can go out on Friday and Saturday, while the next week you have to stay in.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It's certainly not impossible to have a social life and major in engineering. One just needs a little flexibility and skill in time management.</p>
<p>when you said go out friday and saturday one week i was kinda expecting you to say "go out almost every day the next" after that</p>
<p>Haha, I don't think I'd go that far. Although I guess some people probably do... it's just a completely foreign idea for me.</p>
<p>But, of course, you have to consider the source -- my perspective comes directly from me being a double-major (in the sciences) and my boyfriend being an aerospace engineering major and just having gone through his sophomore year unified engineering class, which is famous for being one of the hardest classes at MIT. </p>
<p>There were many weekends this past term when we just stayed in and studied. There were also many weekends when we could have gone out, but we were too tired, so we ordered in and went to bed early. But a) we have each other, so it's not so bad, and b) that's not necessarily a typical experience, and even if it is, you could probably choose not to have that experience. You know what I mean?</p>
<p>Alright ChemE major at U of I. Definitely the hardest freshmen courses at U of I are the accelerated chem courses. No way around it. There was a good month and a half for second semester where I wasn't going out. But I knew it was going to happen (chem lab was a rite of passage course) and prepared by partying hard the weekends before and after. You can have fun but if all you are going for is the major and really want the social life, you won't last. You have to want the major. Want to succeed. That way you can have fun and still do well. That is the key.</p>
<p>can we just ban this golubb_u guy?</p>
<p>Hey Illini, </p>
<p>Kind of off topic, but how do the accelerated chem classes differ from the usual general chem classes? Can you list some specific topics that are not covered in regualr gen chem? </p>
<p>And are you (did you) going to take the accelerated organic chem too? That has got to be a killer.</p>
<p>Well the first class 202 didnt differ much as far as learning from 102. We learned stuff more in-depth and at a different pace. We also covered more nuclear chem. I think that was mainly for people who wanted to switch from 102 to 204 the next semester or the reverse 202 to 104 (which happened MUCH MORE haha). The main difference was the lab 203 vs 103. Our lab reports were written and were 4 hrs a week rather than 3 every other week and we had lab lecture b/c ours were so involved and often more dangerous.</p>
<p>204 vs 104 was a completely different story. 104 started orgo chem about halfway through and we finished with inorganic including things the other class didn't even begin to learn like NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance imaging) and other stuff like electrochem and other topics. Here the lab (205) was not only much harder but a completely different world than 105. It is the rite of passage class for chemEs. It is insanely hard with the biggest part of the class being a month long lab that is on cobalt complexes that involves a ton of research and lab writing (which is not anything like the english paper writing I was so fond of).</p>
<p>Interesting fact: Zumdahl retired one year before we had him but we had Don DeCoste, which I'm quite sure will be the next Zumdahl or ever greater. It was a little crazy first semester with 3 profs (the gap Zumdahl left was big) but now it is pure DeCoste the way it should have been.</p>
<p>Acc Orgo chem promises to be quite an experience. Little nervous but excited.</p>
<p>My dad is an engineer, and he says that the engineering field is shriveling, not the demand but the job availability. He works for Motorola (now Freescale where we live). The problem with engineering now is outsourcing. That being said, 1down22go bring up a good point. Engineers that DO have jobs live a high quality lives.</p>
<p>Charman20 brings up another good point, theoretically. However, remember the recession that began around 2001? I can still remember the headlines in our paper- IBM laying off several hundred thousand employees, Motorola following suite, and the pink slips kept coming en masse after that. Even today engineers are getting laid off, though not quite as dramatically. Some of my dad's friends (also engineers) have been forced to look for other careers. </p>
<p>Today, engineering is still a wonderful field, but there's no guarantee that you'll get & keep a job.</p>
<p>There's no perfect job, including the medical field. Doctors come out of college heavily in debt and with malpractice fears. Just find happiness in whatever you do.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think you're right! The other people going into engineering will get paid accordingly, which is why doctors are so much highly sought after. In ten years, if I'm not a sub-specialist, I'm sure I can be a lowly Internist making 150k ;-)</p>
<p>I'd rather work hard the first 8 years and have a cushy rest-of-my-life, than have it easy the next 4 years and put up with meetings and presentations the rest of my life, all the time playing corporate politics and hating my cube-mates."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I guess no one ever told you that going into medicine for the money is the worst mistake anyone can make. Medicine is one of, if not the most demanding field one can get into. You don't work hard for 8 years, you work hard for your whole life. In fact, it actually gets harder after med school. If you want easy money you should just go into business, because when you get out of med school and possibly get hired by a hospital, you're going to realize that you are feel underpaid for the work you're doing (and you actually will be grossly underpaid as a resident). I don't think anyone that becomes a doctor has a "cushy rest-of-their-life"</p>
<p>well golubb... engineering degrees are hella versatile, my dad has a PhD and is now in management in a billion dollar telecommunications company and he still enjoys learning about all the new technology. he is never on call and makes a lot more money than any doctor i know (believe me)</p>
<p>i plan to do the same</p>
<p>golubb will make a great lawyer......loves to argue!!!</p>
<p>Wow...I've been argumentative in forums before...but this one was just insulting. I'm always fascinated with how a forum entitled "Is engineering a social life killer?" instantly becomes "Stay away from engineering...worst major ever...DOCTORS RULE!"</p>
<p>I must say though that what I have done in industry as a co-op has been pretty...well...boring. Lots of typing and presentations...and definitely those communications are really important as an engineer. But then again, I am a co-op, so maybe that they don't trust me with...oh I don't know...designing a new reactor or heat exchanger or something. Damn...if I were them I'd be skeptical of a kid, too. Hence, my point with the experience claim made much earlier in this post. Older engineers...much more respected and much more valuable. Just one point I would like to make...you earn respect and self-worth, just like with any other job.</p>
<p>Also, one other comment. Engineers definitely are not STUCK with a company. If you want to go somewhere else then just quit. You aren't a slave and there is no contract (NOT EVEN AN IMPLIED ONE) saying you can't leave. But in all seriousness, how do expect to advance and gain respect within a company if you keep moving around? The best way to advance is to stay with the same company if you can.</p>
<p>Ugh...headache. Screw this...I'm going to go watch one of my Sealab DVDs...well...AFTER WORK...:)</p>
<p>at uiuc a bunch of engineers got drunk and rewired all the elevators in a building.</p>