Ask Josh – The Engineer
It seems like such a long time has passed since I’ve been able to thoroughly help someone with one of their life problems. It’s not that I didn’t want to help, it’s that nobody wanted my advice. Finally, someone sent me in an advice question, and I encourage all of you to do the same.
Dear Josh,
I just started my undergraduate mechanical engineering track and I really like what I’m learning. However, I have a slight loathing for cars, and I’m not that interested in aerospace technology. Whenever I tell someone that I picked mechanical engineering, after the usual oooh, they start telling me about cars or airplanes, at which point I lose interest in the conversation. Did I pick the wrong major?
Now let me start off by saying, I know absolutely nothing about engineering. I’m pretty much the exact opposite of an engineering-type guy. First of all, I’m handsome, clean and have some semblance of a personality. To me, engineers are the type of people who have no thoughts outside of their work. They can’t even hang out with the wife and kids for five minutes without convulsing because all they want to do is be balls deep in some sort of dark grease while holding old, dirty wrenches.
So, the fact that you’re already not that into it really speaks volumes about what you should do. I’d say, if you don’t have dreams about marrying a drum of motor oil, or fantasize about pulling gigantic, complicated levers then you’ve made a wrong turn. I would imagine you could go into other areas besides cars and airplanes, but I have really no idea and I don’t care enough about you to do any research on the topic whatsoever.
Luckily, with my lack of knowledge comes my kick ass intuition. From the moment I read your email I could tell that you are out of your element. You really don’t want to do what you’re doing. You might, instead want to be a race car driver in a small town where the biggest highlight of your life would be coming in 2nd at the county fair. Or, I could give you grandma advice and tell you an uplifting story about the neighbors son who “does computers for a living and is making lots of money in it. You should look into it.”
You could also do what the young man did in the movie “Into The Wild” (and in real life) and pack bare essentials into a bag and travel across the country, but instead of giving your life savings to charity you can send it over on my donate page. Or you could start a publishing company and pay me thousands of dollars to write something for it. I’m just looking out for your best interests. I really want to see you succeed in life.
Category: Advice Column
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