The discussion centers on the sacrifices required for pursuing an engineering degree, particularly in civil and mechanical fields. Participants emphasize the intense workload, often exceeding 55 hours per week, and the impact on social life and personal time. Many agree that while the journey is challenging, the rewards of an engineering career, such as job satisfaction and financial stability, make the effort worthwhile. Some participants also explore alternative paths, such as teaching or economics, highlighting the importance of aligning one's passion with career choices.
PREREQUISITESThis discussion is beneficial for prospective engineering students, current engineering majors, educators considering a transition from engineering to teaching, and individuals exploring career options in economics that utilize mathematical skills.
Shaun_W said:No, he absolutely misread my post.
My post was pretty clear in that it says that those who say that you have to sacrifice everything to study engineering are usually trying to justify their poor social skills. They'd rather be at a party at 2am but they're not that good socially so they rationalise it to themselves as having so much studying to do that they don't have time to go to parties, because it's easier than having to admit to yourself that you may have a deficiency in some areas.
As an engineer I have duty to encourage people into the profession, and nonsense along the lines of "you can't have a social life if you do an engineering degree" does the opposite: it turns people away from it. And it's also completely false, too. I know many engineering students who were always the first to the pub once lectures finished. And they got top grades and top jobs, too, earning on average half as much again as the average engineering graduate gets on his or her first job.
Now it may be an uncomfortable truth but engineering degrees do have a much higher proportion of students who are not that comfortable in social situations than many other degrees. That's a fact and not the least bit offensive to me as an engineer.
DrummingAtom said:Engineering school = Having no social life, getting yelled at by your significant other constantly because you're not spending any time with her, class averages of 50% on exams, piles of problem sets, a project due every couple weeks, all nighters, trying to learn some software that is used in a project that you were told about 2 weeks earlier, always feeling tired, endless debugging of MatLab, predicting that a project or problem set will take 5-6 hours but then ends up taking 12-15 hours, losing interest in almost everything, and asking yourself why you're doing this.
I do enjoy it but seriously it's a lot of work.. endless work. I work anywhere from 15-25 hours a week at my job and that feels like too much. Most of the kids in my program (EE) don't work at all which I'm sure helps with stress.