Question for Callie

[Brett Hagmann]

I am a sophomore at NC State University majoring in mechanical engineering. i recently walked on the football team and have been into strength and conditioning training for the past 3 years of my life. I think that i HATE engineering, and i don't want to do something i hate for the rest of my life. So i noticed u studied exercise physiology, what exactly is exercise physiology. if i enjoy training and turning ppl into athletic beasts and possibly want to be involved w/ my own training facility someday, should i be looking into this major? I enjoy learning about new training methods, strongman competitions, olympics lifting, etc...Anything that you have for me would help! Thanx a lot!

[Jesse Johnston]

Not to talk you out of the exercise physiology thing, but I'm a mechanical engineer and have been one for about 20 years. From my experience, sophomore year in any engineering program (maybe every major?) is the worst and not totally indicative of what the last two years will be or what the career will be like. I thought seriously of changing majors twice in my sophomore year and, all things considered, am glad I didn't. If you decide to stick with ME, I think you'll find that junior and senior years, when you have more electives and choose a specialization are a lot more interesting and 'fun'. I can elaborate if you want. Just one man's opinion. YMMV.

[Brett Hagmann]

please elaborate for me...

ive made A's and B's my whole life and all of a sudden second semester sophomore year i am FAILING two of my engineering classes: Solid Mechanics and Dynamics. I hate being in both of those classes, i hate doing the homework problems. I've talked to a lot of advisors about this and some say its just those garbage classes you have to get out of the way, and others say its the base of engineering and they are very important. Well, if those are the base and Im hating it already, i can't imagine how im gonna hate it later on. I can tell you i love everything about athletic training and the stuff that goes along w/ that. im just pretty f'in confused right now.

[Eric Johnson]

Brett, just as more information for you. I have a degree in Chemical Engineering and the only thing that got me through college was R&R and BV :D . I almost quit at the end of my first semester Junior year and my dad talked me out of it. I am glad he did. My situation was a little different than yours, I had transfered from a small 2 year college to a 4yr university. So technically I was a junior but had missed all the sophmore level ChemE classes, so I took them concurrently with my Junior level classes. I can safely say my work life has never been anything like the college work was, I have much more fun at work. Don't let a hard class or two talk you out of your chosen major. Instead think about what you want to do with your life, can you handle sitting at a desk all day writting reports or performing calcs or etc.... or would you rather be on your feet helping others get into shape, dealing with bitchy and complainng people? Only you can answer that. I chose chemE for some selfish reasons, it was the most money I could make right out of college with a 4 year degree. But at 36years old I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up :D.

Good Luck man.

[Kevin McNease]

I feel you man. Im a sophomore here at University of Missouri-Rolla in the ME Dept. and this year has been rough as hell for me. I hate it here. But I know it'll get better when I get out of all these BS weed-out classes. Just stick with it man...the degree is golden. From what Ive heard it gets a lot better after sophomore year. My 2cents.

Kevin

[Callie Marunde]

check you email

[kara]

From my experience, sophomore year in any engineering program (maybe every major?) is the worst and not totally indicative of what the last two years will be or what the career will be like.

totally agree jesse! my degree is in industrial and systems engineering. the entire core engineering curriculum was extremely hard for me and of little relevance to my major. once i got into my IE classes junior and senior year it was smooth sailing and far more interesting.

but i must say i too detest engineering and am not currently practicing. if i had it all to do over i would have gone to beauty school like i originally wanted to.

[MarkSikora]

Shoot Kara, nobody else is going to say it, so I will:

You graduated summa cum laude from beauty school!! :IMHO:


Man, you young, good looking, single guys should be kicking youselves for not coming up with that. Shows you that with age, comes wisdom. :M:


Brett, good luck in whatever you decide to do.

see ya

Mark

[kara]

ROTF mark. good stuff :LOL:

[Jesse Johnston]

I'm such an ugly dude they won't let me drive by a beauty school...

I said I'd elaborate and never did - sorry 'bout that. All of this is JMO and JME. Freshman and sophomore engineering classes are very abstract. Physics, calc, differential eqtns, partial diff eq, dynamics, all that stuff, is all core, foundation material. Most of this stuff you'll never see in the workplace and only periodically see in your upper level classes. But it all develops the engineering, problem solving mindset. Junior level classes get more concrete, less abstract, closer to real world. Senior level, with electives thrown in, gets as close as you can to the workplace, but even then falls a bit short. My experience (and I talk to engrs. in other companies and industries routinely and they generally concur) is that I spend somewhere between 25 and 50% of my time on purely technical issues, usually toward the low end of that range. The rest is spent on administrative crap, communications (meetings, presentations, emails, aaarrrrgghhh), financial stuff, etc.

I'm rambling. To make a long story short, the stuff that's frustrating you now is not what you'll be doing for a living later. If you get the chance to co-op or intern somewhere, I highly recommend it. If you want some help on that end, lemme know. Good luck whichever way you go.