Comment by kgwxd
7 days ago
If you've made it that far in life without learning how to use a screwdriver, engineering would be a bad choice of major. And paying insane amounts of money for someone to explain how to use one would be an even poorer choice.
It was amazing to me how many people I met in college that pursued majors they didn't even like. It was even more sad when it was clear they or their parents had fallen in love with the idea of a career path and not the realities of it.
Lots of my engineering cohort landed in sales because they didn't like building or fixing things. I guess that's a win for them, but I always felt nauseated that practical kids might be cut from the program instead of the book-smart but uninterested ones.
I asked my CS peers why they were doing that major since they clearly disliked programming and theory.
They all said they would either be a consultant or a manager.
> They all said they would either be a consultant or a manager.
To be a good consultant, one must be exceptional in the area in which one consults.
Similarly: if they actually want to become a manager, why don't they study business administration instead. And because lots of people want to become managers: why don't they hang all day and night about textbooks and texts about economic topics and analyze reportings of companies or business case studies?
Same reason I always wonder whether I should go for an electrician/mechanic/avion mechanic education if I'm laid off (and cannot find a job).
I'm really not a handyman -- quite the opposite -- it took me and my father 30 minutes to change the car battery last time -- and most of the time was spent on pushing a component dropped to the bottom out of the car. I used to think that more practices bring some sort of linear growth of the skill in the beginning, but now I tend to believe that for certain people (who are not suitable for the trade), the beginning is totally random -- I could practice 100 times and fail 100 tiles randomly, without really learning anything -- because there are an unlimited number of ways to do one thing, theoretically.
Software suits me way more. Soldering is also OK albeit more confusing. Unfortunately there is no trade that primarily deals with microcontrollers, except in military/defense.