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by A couple of days ago, I was talking to a young engineering major at one of the better universities in the area. She said that whenever she first meets another student and tells them that she plans on majoring in an engineering field, their usual reaction isn't "How interesting!", "Which field?", "How's that going for you?", or any of the other responses that would occur to me. Instead, the most common reaction is something along the lines of "Engineering? But engineering is hard!" -- as though the normal thing to do is to pick a major based on whatever will require the least amount of study and effort.
Even though it's been a couple of days, I keep thinking about this bit of conversation to see what insights it can provide. My first reaction was the usual old-fart thought of "Jeeze, kids these days, what's the world coming to?", followed quickly by the pride and joy I felt for this girl and the innumerable other young guys and gals just like her who aren't going to be dissuaded by the fear of a challenge or the by need to exert themselves.
My next thought was that maybe these kids -- the ones who are avoiding hard subjects and instead picking their own path of least resistance -- are on to something. While the engineering fields pay reasonably well, there are other majors that pay about as well while requiring quite a bit less effort. Ultimately, all I can hope for is that all of these kids are making their career choices for good reasons: for the beauty of mathematics, for the usefulness of engineering, for the awe of astronomy, and that those who choose a field of study outside of the hard sciences do so for a similarly joyful reason rather than simply because "engineering is hard".
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2 Nerd-Its
Still waiting for my check ...
Four years and roughly 50,000 lines of code churn and not a single check from OmniNerd. Talk about poor compensation!
But seriously ...
I think the "that's hard" mentality is simply statistics speaking. Most people are not cut out to be engineers, politicians, doctors, generals or CEOs. I think it's natural that most people think of these things as hard or difficult.
Additionally, everyone's got their niche. I think writing Ruby code is very enjoyable. Lance Armstrong likes racing bikes. If you put me in his race and him in my code, we'd probably both see the new task as "hard."
I remember when I was thinking about majoring in computer science everyone told me I was crazy because it was "too hard" and would "ruin my GPA." 4 years later, I graduated at the top of my class and absolutely loved what I had learned. I'm so glad I didn't listen to others prior to that choice. The key difference between the advice givers and me was that I loved the subject matter and they did not. For them, it very well may have been too hard and ruined their GPA. For me, it was captivating and easy to immerse myself in.
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While the engineering fields pay reasonably well, there are other majors that pay about as well while requiring quite a bit less effort.
What are these majors? The only professions of which I can think that generally make more money than engineers are those that require higher degrees - doctors, lawyers, some businessmen.
As an engineer only four years out of school, I must admit I feel very well compensated - particularly because I work only 40 hours a week (as opposed to doctors or lawyers who work much more than that).