The discussion revolves around the sacrifices and challenges faced by students pursuing engineering degrees, particularly in terms of time, energy, and social life. Participants share their experiences and perspectives on whether the effort required is worthwhile, as well as considerations for balancing work and study.
Participants do not reach a consensus on the nature and extent of sacrifices required for an engineering degree. While some emphasize the heavy workload and its impact on social life, others argue that it is possible to maintain a balance and enjoy a fulfilling experience.
Some participants highlight the variability in individual experiences, suggesting that personal circumstances, such as work hours and social skills, can significantly influence one's ability to manage the demands of an engineering program.
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.