Should I Prioritize My Education or Pursue Inventions During My Spare Time?

[taylaron]

Hi, I am a college freshman studying EE. I'm very creative and artistic. I intend to be a research scientist after I finish my education and pursue the art of being an inventor.
My dilemma is what to focus on in my spare time.

At this time I am doing a lot of independent research on ideas that I believe have potential in the real world. However, since many of them are cutting-edge technology, pretty much all significant progress must be done in a laboratory with laboratory funding... (opposed to at home in my spare time with personal funds).

I do agree that my education is a priority and everything else is secondary. However, being the nature of an inventor, the whole idea of successfully constructing something new "before someone else beats you to it" attitude has produced a dilemma. I want to actively pursue independent research along side my education as to make progress and feel that I am not "sitting back and watch other people get credit for concepts I've already conceived"...

I'm asking for your opinion an whither or not I should put 'pursuing my ideas on the back burner' until after I finish my education, or if I should focus singly on my education and potentially let other scientists accomplish my dreams before I can.

Regards,

-Tay

 

[Choppy]

I think one of the keys to being a successful scientist is pursuing your interests beyond the classroom. There are a lot of peopl who do very well in a "lecture and test" paradigm, but then don't have the independence to generate their own ideas and end up not being very successful as researchers.

Something you might want to look into is getting involved in an engineering student group on your campus. These groups will pursue solar car racing, robotics competitions, etc. These activities will give you the opportunity to see how ideas go from a rough sketch to physical production and keep you in contact with like-minded people and will often compliment your studies. You might even get an opportunity to patent some ideas.

If your school doesn't have something like this, you might want to consider starting one up.