Second Thoughts About Engineering

By: Kerianne Hobbs

Posted: 4/15/09

There comes a time in an engineering student's academic life when they ask themselves, "Why am I doing engineering, again?" Most engineering students experience this lack of faith many times during their college experience.

Some experience it when they talk to their friends from high school that are enjoying all the free time that a liberal arts major has to party, play video games, and update their Facebook status every ten minutes.

Some engineers experience the moment of weakness when they get their first D or F on a test. Others experience it when they have done so much math and physics homework that their dreams become unintelligible word problems that require versions of calculus that only make sense in dreams to solve.

If you have not dreamed in math and physics, you are not a true engineer.

I often look to my hobbies and wonder if I would be happier making a career out art or writing. Are they just hobbies?

Going to the Associated Collegiate Press Newspaper conference with the Horizons staff this spring and sitting through the lectures made me wonder if I might enjoy journalism more than engineering. That inspired a difficult internal struggle that forced me to answer the questions "What do I want to do for the rest of my life? Who do I want to become? And, when I'm 80 years old and I look back on my life, what do I want to remember?"

So, why am I not pursuing a career in journalism or creative writing? Well, to me, that just seems like the easy way out. Space exploration is fascinating to me. I have an analytical mind that thrives on solving problems. I love physics, and I actually enjoyed classes like physics, dynamics, and even MATLAB. If I could be a rocket scientist, the epitome of challenging careers, why would I settle for less?

Engineering is hard. When a person teases someone about a stupid mistake that they have made, a commonly used phrase is "It's not rocket science." Rocket science is perceived as one of the most difficult (if not the most difficult) field of study.

"Welcome freshman engineering students. Look to the student on your left. Now, look to the student on your right. Two of you will not graduate from the engineering program." This is a typical engineering program orientation topic. Many of my high school acquaintances at other universities heard this during orientation, and it was referenced by a speaker during the orientation sessions at ERAU this fall.

Engineering is not just a career, it's a lifestyle-a lifestyle that demands long hours of work and that taxes your mind to exhaustion. The moment of weakness is real. Every engineer experiences it to some degree, and many engineering students let the relief of doing something simpler drive their decision to major in something else.

For these reasons, I hereby declare that Friday, April 24 is "Riddle Hug an Engineer Day." Do I have the power to do this? Probably not, but think about how good you will feel after you have brightened the world by making the day of one sad, exhausted, and socially awkward engineer just that much happier!

And the world will be a better place for you and me, just wait and see.