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Why


Admiral Regulus

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Why?

 

It's a simple question. Often, I consider it the most important question. It's easy to make observations--this is happening, this causes this, this is like this, this is not like this, and so on. Understanding the fundamental reason, or underlying reasons why is something different altogether. But it's what I try to do in every possible context, even if I don't always understand.

 

So, when I was in my early teen years and looking to study engineering, I was often asked why. I'd heard so many things. Things like... Engineering is hard. You'll graduate in six years rather than four. You have to be good at math. You have to get good grades now or you'll be lost in college. You won't have much of a social life because you'll be doing math at 3am. You'll be loaded down with student debt and never be able to pay it back. You won't be able to get a job anyway because you'll graduate with no experience.

 

So why? Why go through all the blood, sweat, and tears to get an engineering degree in the six years after high school? So people asked me: Is it to please my parents? Do I really, really, really like math? Do I feel some need to be challenged? Is it what I really want to do, or am I just in it for the money?

 

The only answer I could come up with was, "what else do I do?"

 

I am good at math. It frustrates me just as much as anyone, but I can do it and I can do well if I apply myself. But make no mistake, I don't love it. The truth is, I'm motivated to stick with it because I have no desire to do anything else.

 

I have no intention to work in the retail or service industry, nor will I ever acquire such a thing. I don't want to work fifty or sixty hours a week for the rest of my life, at less than $10 an hour, just to make enough money to pay for a single-bedroom studio apartment and whatever car repairs I need that month. I don't want to wake up early every morning and have to talk to people complaining that the pasta I served them is a little cold. I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning feces and vomit off the bathroom floor. I don't want to be a landscaper or work in the construction industry, where I have to be outside in hot or cold weather all day. I don't want to work in the medical field, where I may have to see blood and gore on a frequent basis. I don't want to be a police officer or fireman, where I could potentially be putting my life in danger every day.

 

So when my parents told me they would make me go to college and they'd pay for every expense along the way, I had no reason to argue with that.

 

But biology was boring in high school. Geology and archeology never caught my interest, either. Game design could be fun, but I don't want to be a part of an industry that I have a huge distaste for. What about computer science? Web design? Or something more technical like welding? Machining? Plumbing? Or... y'know, I could always just suffer a few years of intense math and do engineering.

 

So here I am, at twenty months, two summers, two falls, and one more spring semester away from graduation with a bachelor's of science in mechanical engineering. Overall GPA is a little more than 3.6, and my major GPA is a little more than 3.0. No work experience, no internship, not much of a social life, but I'll graduate without any debt and with, hopefully, a few job prospects.

 

But my experience is... I don't like it that much. I spend so much time studying, just barely trying to cram all the knowledge into my head. It's stressful, so very much. For a few weeks every semester, my mental health takes a plunge. I lose the ability to sleep well. Open-book pop quizzes happen and it turns out I didn't have my book. Tests happen and I never have the time to finish them. I get so worried I'm not doing well enough. I try everything I can to do my best, but my professors aren't clear with their expectations, they don't always speak English very well, they do little more than read off of PowerPoint slides. I show up to class most days and almost fall asleep. The next day I try the homework--I work and work and work, the day goes by and I still don't finish. I pull my hair out, I submit what I have, and then I wonder what I was doing wrong for the rest of the night.

 

It's true, I've done math at 3am. I've had dreams of solving differential equations. I can't watch movies anymore without thinking about how physics would never happen the way they're portrayed. Over the years, I've been enlightened on so many different topics, and I can't remove them from my head no matter what. Bending moment and transverse shear stress are good subjects for dinnertime conversation. I live and breathe the Carnot cycle in thermodynamics. Under normal walking conditions, my Reynold's number is between 30 and 35 thousand.

 

I'm so far into this, I can't back down now. I never would, no matter how difficult it gets. It's still just one more year, and if I don't keep going, then the past five years of my life would have been a waste. That's a good reason why I've kept grinding along, but at this point, I'm just barely explaining anything yet. I've still not touched on the reason why. Above all else, there actually is one.

 

That's it. There's only one real reason. One reason and one reason alone why I've decided to study engineering, and why I've continued doing so when it's been so stressful and challenging.

 

It's because I'm so bad at dealing with stress, and I want an easy life. I have no desire to be the president. I have no desire to be a CEO, or even a project manager. I honestly don't care about money--as long as I'm not broke there are so many other things that are more important to me, such as having friends and family and not being stressed at work. Maybe it seems counter-intuitive, but the simple fact is that once I finish school, if I can get a job as an engineer, it will be virtually stress-free compared to being an engineering student. I'm making myself suffer in the short term so that I can benefit in the long term.

 

What I want, is to be able to go into work every morning at 9am, do my job, have lunch, do more of my job, and then go home at 5pm having earned enough money to support myself and hopefully someday a family. That's pretty much all there is to it. Maybe when I'm in my 30's and 40's and even 50's I might feel better equipped to handle more responsibility, and I might seek a position that's more involved. But that's not what I want right now.

 

Someday, I'll be done. I'll graduate. I'll get a job. I won't be rich and I don't have any desire to be, but I'll be able to buy a new car and pay for my hobbies. In a few years after that, I'll be able to buy my own house. I'll live there, work a mildly-interesting, medium-pay, low-stress job, and hopefully be able to support a wife and a child sometime soon after that. I'll save money for my kid's education in the same way my parents did for me, and thus I will fulfill my place in the circle of life.

 

So that's why. That's why I do what I do; that's why I suffer. It's so that I won't have to suffer in the future.

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