Is Engineering for you Civil should i do Structural Mechanical Environmental Electrical
So. Is engineering for you?
This is a difficult question to approach with specifics because, of course, engineer's design lots of things. Whether it's your garage, the car in your garage, the machine that made your car, the tools used to repair that machine, the road you drive to work in, the skyscraper you work in.. well I think I made my point. So before you want to think if engineering is for you, ask yourself, 'What kind of engineer would I want to be?'.
Perhaps you would like to be a civil engineer? Do you want to design and oversee construction of road and rail projects? Doesnt sound so glamorous when it is put like that. How about.. do you want to design the next Golden Gate Bridge, the next Channel Tunnel or whatever the next superstructure is?
Okay, but maybe something else, maybe a structural engineer? Do you want to be able to design a house? Not ambitious enough? How about being able to design the structure for the tallest building in the world? Ever seen the CN tower? Well, I know you have seen at least ONE Olympic stadium (and don't forget the Water Cube!)
Doesn't float your boat? Well let's move on to environmental engineering. No, I didn't make that up, quite important actually and a lot of people do it. No this doesn't involve chaining yourself to trees, it's more to do with the aspect of engineering where we don't damage our environment. Not what you want? Oh, what about water treatment, and that COULD be the water treatment for your city OR developing water treatment in underdeveloped countries, among many other things.
Oh, I think I know! Maybe you aren't interested in giant things that are designed to stay still, maybe you want to design something small... so small that it's barely visible to the human eye. Yes, I'm talking about electrical engineering (not an electrician, though that can a form of engineering too). Designing circuits or if I can put it this way, giving brains to our machines.
Not to interested in designing the brain? Fair enough, but how about programming that brain to do your every whim. Computer engineering, or programming is one relatively new branch of engineering compared to the others, but it's a huge part of the world we are in, just ask the machine you are using to read this or the site you use to book your flights or that swanky new Blu-Ray player you got for Christmas?
What's that? It's not the size you are worried about, it's the fact that the products are being designed to stay still. You must want to be a mechanical engineer. Can you think of an object that moves, or has moving parts? Then it was designed or partially designed by a mechanical engineer.
I haven't even approached the wide range of engineering available in the world. While a list is not the best, I'll give a few examples of engineering and if you want to know more then you can do a bit of research. So how about nuclear engineering, aerospace engineering, nautical engineering, marine engineering, genetic engineering, chemical engineering, etc. The list goes on.
Well I hope you understand what engineers do? They solve problems. So, if you like to solve problems, then decide what kind of problems you like to solve and get started with engineering that relates to that problem. You will never find yourself short of someone to talk to as there are so many engineers in this world. So.. not clear on anything? Then... ask. Problem solved.
