Originally posted by: TecHNooB
People say you shouldn't go into engineering because you like computers.
People say you shouldn't go into engineering for the money.
So why do people do engineering?! What makes little kids say, "I wanna design a VLSI circuit when I grow up!" I can understand the mechanical and aerospace engineers.. they wanna design cars and airplanes and such. But the electrical engineers.. them I just do not understand. If you can't already tell, I just effed up on an exam. I feel sick.
There's a few misconceptions:
When people (myself included) say you shouldn't go into eng if you like computers, what we mean is that just because you like upgrading your video card, doesn't necessarily mean you'll enjoy engineering. This may sound a bit too broad, but the primary motivations should be things like REALLY understanding how things work, building new things, solving problems etc. But if you have these things, liking tinkering with computers, or fixing cars etc are all very nice bonuses, as it means you'll eventually find work you really enjoy.
For example, I did computer engineering, and went into it by way of tinkering with computers. But the truth is, I would have enjoyed mechanical or industrial engineering just as much, because the primary motivations are the same.
Second, the money part. As an engineer on average you will make make more than an average grad and way more than the average person. What people mean when they say "money isn't in engineering" is that you won't be making the 500k or whatever a successful trader or banker makes.
However, what you have to consider two things: First, its very easy to move from doing engineering to management if that is what you want. At my last job (the company that makes the blackberry) I was in the program management department and there were a huge number of senior people (including the VP) who had engineering degrees. Indeed, in any tech company you'll find engineers disproportionately (in a good way) represented in management, and if you're a director or VP in a successful company, you will be making a lot of money.
The other thing to consider is that starting your own tech company is much easier for you to do than a non-tech person. Do a quick survey of tech companies and you'll see what a huge percentage of their founders and senior people are either from CE, EE or CS.
So your motivation should be that engineering will give you a very good (IMO the best) foundation so that afterwards you can easy do whatever best suits your interests - from doing circuit design to software dev, project management, getting and MBA and doing banking (yes, I have friends form eng that are doing this right now) etc.
Also, don't worry about fucking up an exam - I did that many times. Several times in first year I did so badly I thought about dropping out and become a firefighter or chef
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