When I went to school, I took a course of study called Aircraft Maintenance Engineering. The curriculum was structured so that the first four trimesters were spent gaining your Airframe and PowerPlant Mechanic's license followed by several years of engineering fundamentals and electives. When you got out, you were somewhere between a mechanic and a full fledged aerospace engineer and targeted at being a liaison between the two. I had a passion for airplanes that went back as far as I could remember. For my birthday when I was four, I asked simply to be taken to the airport to watch the airplanes, a request I repeated in subsequent years. So, when at the age of 17, I found myself on a campus full of like minded individuals with my hands in the guts of pieces and parts of airplanes, I found myself in heaven and immersed myself in my studies. After two years of what was for me, bliss, I became a full fledged A&P and started my engineering classes while working part time for the school doing maintenance on the flight line and assisting with the flight line lab instruction. I quickly discovered that at work, I was in heaven while in the class room, I was faced with some of the same challenges I found many of the folks posting on the Wired blog writing about.
My first year physics instructor was a retired military officer and every problem was an artillery problem. Even the one you somewhat joyfully though was not - "... a freight train leaves New York headed west at 50 mph ..." - turned into one - "... and 20 miles out of Albany, the top of the box car opens revealing a cleverly disguised artillery piece which, while the train is in motion, fires a round at 60 degrees to the horizontal and a velocity of ...".
My first year calculus instructor was from India, and while obviously brilliant was so difficult to understand that several of us did not recognize our names when she called roll and were being marked consistently absent even though we were there.
By the end of the semester, I told John Moyn, my mentor on the flight line, that I was dropping out to follow my passion and be a mechanic full time. He cautioned me to think carefully; he felt that while I was a great mechanic and would certainly go far in the field, at some point I would hit a wall where I knew the corporate jet I would be crew chief of inside out and find myself bored, with the rest of my life before me and not many options for moving forward. On the other hand, he felt I had some talent and a future as an engineer and that my mechanic skills would only be a boon to that. Bottom line, he encouraged me to stick it out another semester. My Dad did the same when I went home and talked about it with him. So I did and, to my surprise, things changed remarkably.
Dr. Monfort, my 2nd year physics professor was dynamic, as passionate about physics as his students were about airplanes, and constantly found ways to hook the two things together. He would spend time with us one on one if we needed it and turned something that I dreaded the first semester into something I anticipated with a bit of eagerness the 2nd.
In a similar vein, Dr. Roberts, the head of the Math department, had started sitting in on my first year Calc class when he noticed the high level of absenteeism and heard some fairly vocal complaints from those of us taking the class. After about three lectures, he had the new professor take some language classes while he took over the lecture. Both were great decisions because the first year class turned around; we all passed as I recall, some with better than average marks, and the original professor went on to become one of the better instructors once she had some experience speaking America's version of English.
Dr. Roberts also became one of my mentors and guided me through many mathematical dilemmas as I sorted my way through the rest of my engineering studies. It was not all heaven and bliss. I almost flunked thermo (my problem, not the instructors). Some stuff seemed almost incomprehensible and of no practical value, and my favorite part of the day was still when I got to the hanger and got my hands inside and airplane. But a lot of days, an assignment from one of my classes would be a close second, despite the fact that it just about drove me crazy trying to figure out the answer.
So, what are my points here?
1. You're going to have some bad classes and professors; don't let a couple of bad ones turn you away from something you believe you should be doing. And, if you are having problems with understanding what is being taught, talk to them about it. They can't change what they are doing if they don't know whats wrong with it. And, if they're doing a great job, tell them that too. Both messages are important. I teach technical hands on type classes on occasion, and when the reviews get handed in at the end, the ones that make me feel on top of the world are the ones that say "this was a great class, thanks!", but I suspect the ones that I take to heart the most - and that sometimes cause me to sit up at night thinking about what I'm doing when I teach - are the ones that say "here's what you could have done to make this class more meaningful to me".
2. The early classes in any course of study can be brutal and boring and seemingly pointless. But they often set up the foundation for the exciting stuff and are priceless in terms of allowing you to understand something that you have a passion for. The wrong time to discover that is after the passion has been ignited and you wish you had paid attention before. If you're really blessed, you'll run into some folks who can make even the fundamental stuff seem interesting. And understanding and believing in the fundamental stuff in your gut will give you the courage you need to do what ever it is you are destined to do and do it well. I learned more about design out in the field starting up my own systems (some of which was quite sobering) than I ever learned in a class room. But I had the courage to go out in the field and start up my own systems because I believed in the fundamentals AND because I had some really great mentors (on the average, I suspect about one a year over thirty some years - I work for one of them now) standing behind me saying some version of "get out there, we believe in you and if something goes wrong, we'll help you figure it out."
3. If you've been at it for a while and it STILL seems brutal and boring and seemingly pointless, then frightening as it may be, consider the possibility that maybe you need to explore a different option. Maybe its the same course of study at a different school. Or maybe its a totally different course of study. If you are convinced that the technical path if for you but just are not inspired by the classroom, try to find a way to get your hands involved in it, not just your brain. The best thing I ever did as an engineering student was learn to be a mechanic and then go work on airplanes and cars and houses and buildings. If you want a bit more of my perspective on that, take a look at "Try this at Home, Please"
4. If you think you have found your passion and died and gone to heaven, be open to the possibility that there might even be something better than that; that maybe you have yet to find your true calling. I mentioned my passion for aviation earlier and how I thought I was in heaven when I got to school and started working on planes. The bottom line is that I have spent 32 plus years in the buildings industry (how that happened is its own story) with aviation as a hobby and know in my heart of hearts that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do and doing it pretty well. That doesn't mean there aren't days when I wonder to myself exactly why it is that I'm not in aviation given the fact that I can not ever remember a time when I didn't have some sort of awareness of airplanes. But then I look at the truly great folks in the aviation business, I conclude that I could have likely been good in that, but I suspect I am even better at what I'm doing now, and making more of a difference and doing more good and that my role in aviation may be to get some young kid who never thought about airplanes to think about them so she or he can go be great in that field.
5. Having the opposite sex in your classroom is a good thing and all of that, but I personally believe that you should consider the possibility of romance outside of your field of interest. Where ever you find it, it will give you balance and perspective and insight that you will never find with out the mirror of a totally different perspective by your side. I'm married to an artist and I can tell you for a fact that I would not be a fraction of what I am as an engineer or person were it not for Kathy. She grounds me and centers me and supports me and gives me perspective and confidence and insight that simply would not have been there with out her sharing her life with me. Does that mean I don't think you can find the love of your life across the aisle in an engineering class room? Absolutely not; I'm sure you can and many probably have. I guess what I'm really saying is that you probably should be in the engineering classroom because you have a passion for what is being taught there and if that happens to get you caught up in some of life's other passions in the process, then that's truly wonderful and even better. But, as frightening as it is, you'll likely have to find life's other passions in other venues. And having the courage to explore those venues in search of it will be well worth the challenge that confronts us somewhat introverted engineering types when we venture outside the technical arena.
So, there they are, my "Top Five Reasons Why it May Turn Out that it Doesn't Suck to be an Engineering Student After All"; a bit of perspective from 32 years down the road.
