Not Even Sherman

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Yup. I'm not even sure at all, man. (lame pun)</p>

<p>There's a little bit of a division in my desires for careers going on right now. In high school, math (and physics because it's math-intensive) were the only things I was good at. I came into community college wanting to do math. But now, I just don't even know. </p>

<p>I have loved math so far (I've taken the complete calculus sequence, as well as differential equations, not including linear algebra) and my favorite topic was integration since it's basically a brain-teaser. But now has come the time I must leave community college. Is it sad that I'm really not looking forward to majoring in math or engineering? A few reasons for each:</p>

<p>If I majored in math, I'm not looking forward to 2-3 years of relearning all of math by proofs. I've previewed a lot of the upcoming math, and I'm not exactly enticed by all of the underlying theory of things like counting, or performing math in different bases. </p>

<p>We had a project in my calculus III class this semester where we try to do an optimization problem for finding minimum cost of a gas line (Since almost everyone in that class is either Petro. or Mech. Engineering) I hated that problem, and even more so that it was a group project that I got stuck in the group of people who expect me to do all the work to save their grade. (I'm top of the class) But this was a real-world engineering problem (albeit simple) and while I was the first in the class to figure out the answer the same day the project was assigned, I can't imagine doing that kind of work on a daily basis. If I actually were working for an engineering firm, I don't like the liability that goes into it all, since I actually had to ask the instructor what the project was looking for, which makes me feel stupid that I couldn't understand it first thing.</p>

<p>I guess I'm just a person who cannot handle NOT knowing the answers. For those who were torn in a similar situation, what helped you decide? I feel inclined to actually go pick up an engineering textbook and read through it to see what it's all about, hoping that optimization problem is not the only problem in engineering. I just don't know of any good textbooks except the one that my school uses, and even then, I don't know if I want to spend $200 just to pick up a book that I might not even comprehend all that well.</p>

2

<p>Do any other math-heavy or math-like subjects like statistics, economics, and computer science interest you?</p>

3

<p>I do like computer programming, and did an undergrad research project this past spring where we (specifically I, since I was the only group member to not drop out) had to code a computer program to help model data. I actually learned to program basic stuff in C++ in my early teens since that was my interest back then.</p>

<p>But I took an introductory computer programming course this fall, and I’m struggling a little bit with OOP, mainly because I have not read the book once this semester and have been going off of knowledge of programming I acquired throughout my teenage years. But it’s also important to note that this class is difficult just because it’s online, the instructor only assigns one problem for homework a week, and the tests have nothing to do with the homework, as in the homework is where you actually code programs, and the exams are where you are given a program, and you just say whether or not it runs, if so, what does the program print out? It’s not the most engaging course I’ve ever taken. And only 3 people, including me, made it this far in the class. Everyone else dropped.</p>