<p>I'm currently a freshman nursing student and I think I want to switch my major to engineering. After one semester in nursing, I am rethinking things. I am not that interested in nursing anymore because I don't really like people that much, I don't want to clean them or monitor them. I also realized how much I missed math from high school and have been looking into electrical engineering. It seems so interesting to me and I live my life always trying to make things efficient and doing things the fastest way possible. Being able to design things and improve them and actually know why things are the way they are is so interesting to me. The problem is, throughout high school I thought I liked science classes, and did not like math except for physics. Now, I look back and think that math was not so bad. So I am finishing my freshman year in nursing and then possibly switching to engineering next year.</p>
<p>I guess my question is how do I know which is right for me? Nursing or engineering? </p>
<p>Any opinions on the two majors or switching to engineering would be greatly appreciated!!</p>
<p>I think the first step is to figure out if nursing truly ISN’T right for you, which it sounds like you’ve done, if you really don’t enjoy it/think you will enjoy it.</p>
<p>I suppose the next step would be to research as much as you can about what you might do as an electrical engineer and also look at the course requirements for that major and see if THAT’S what you want to do instead of nursing.</p>
<p>Yeah, please don’t pursue nursing. You sound like one of the throngs of nursing students in it for the money and not much else.</p>
<p>While as an RN you probably won’t be expected to do the dirty work (CNAs/LVNs), you’ll certainly be expected to monitor the crap out of them. Not sure if engineering is for you, but nursing definitely ain’t.</p>
<p>Also, is there a reason you choose nursing initially? If it wasn’t the money, were you interested in being in the medical field and found out nursing wasn’t the door you wanted to go through?</p>
<p>I am good with technology and fixing things that aren’t working on phones, tvs, and computers.</p>
<p>I initially chose nursing because my mom started out as a nurse and she wanted me to follow in her footsteps. She did not directly tell me that I have to be a nurse, but she strongly encouraged it. I feel like I forced myself to like science classes in high school (biology, anatomy, and physiology). My favorite class was physics and now that I look back, I liked precalc and trig or math in general because there is a way to do it and you get an answer, whereas in science classes, it is tons of memorization of things that I have little interest in.</p>
<p>I am just hesitant to switch my major because what if I regret it and want to go back to nursing, but once I leave, I can’t go back to it.</p>
<p>I am just worried that if I decide I don’t like engineering, what am I going to do?</p>
<p>I think I would enjoy either of them. Engineering technology sounds interesting. Do you know what kind of work they typically do or what a general day at work would be like?</p>
<p>Go buy the first college book on electrical engineering (usually just simple basic circuits). Go through the first 4 chapter by yourself (without help). If you can’t solve 99% of the problems on those chapters, you probably won’t survive. BTW, a lot of EE professors really are lousy teachers. Let’s face it: if they are any good, they will be working in the industry instead of teaching… :-)</p>
<p>I don’t agree with that advice. Picking up an EE book (no matter how basic) and not being able to solve essentially every problem doesn’t mean much. It could mean you may have to take your time at first, it could even mean you have to take your time throughout your whole undergrad career, but it doesn’t have to, and it certainly doesn’t mean you won’t survive. How dedicated you are to working hard and all of the other aspects that go along with hard work will play a larger role in whether you’ll succeed than whether you can solve 4 chapters worth of EE problems before even starting your EE major.</p>
<p>Also, the majority of professors probably wanted to be professors way before they even entered grad school. It should be noted that teaching at a university isn’t something an engineer graduate does when there just isn’t anything else to do. That sounds silly.</p>
<p>Yeah, that teaching/industry comment is idiotic. So the respective faculties at Berkeley, Caltech and MIT are full of morons who couldn’t cut it in industry…</p>
<p>Nursing is a calling much like becoming a priest. If you do not feel that level of commitment, by all means drop it.</p>
<p>No doubt about it, engineering school is a grind, but if you have the interest and the aptitude you will get through it.</p>
<p>EDIT to clarify: Check out Make magazine online: if you think it’s cool, you may be an emerging engineer. Ask for snap circuits - basic electronics sets - for your birthday and run through the designs. If you look at engineering at its most basic you can gauge your level of interest.</p>
<p>Ee has many job opportunities just make sure you get an internship during your years in college because it is essential</p>
<p>As for the actual switch I don’t know what college you are in right now but that also makes a difference. If you are at Berkeley or cal poly, it may be near impossible to make that switch.</p>