How distorted is my view of engineering/engineers? ?

Any successful career is based on having a certain amount of enjoyment for what you are doing. If you don't look forward to going to work then you won't be successful or happy. Yes, it is possible to make a lot of money as an engineer but at what price. You need to take some aptitude tests as well as some that identify your likes and dislikes. I think you will find these can be very helpful and much more accurate than you can imagine. I was fortunate, I decided when I was a junior in high school that I wanted to be an engineer and I have never regretted my choice because I found a career that I enjoyed and that resulted in me being very successful and happy. I never dreaded going to work, I always looked forward to a new assignment, task or location.

Well I feel as though you wouldn't make a good Engineer, of course I do not know you but it seems you're looking more for reasons not to be an Engineer than reasons to be an Engineer. If you're not strong in Math and Science you most likely will not even be able to enter an Engineering School. I transfered to UCLA and had to go up through Differential Equations before being admited to Henry Samueli School Of Engineering at UCLA. The science you do depends on the Engineering you're heading into, for example an Electrical Engineer will do most of the same coursework associated with a Physics degree. To be good in Engineering you have to be willing to work extremely hard, especially if you're not yet as strong in math and science as you should be. For this reason along with many others, your heart needs to be in the subject to be able to full excel at it. This goes for any job really. I think you need to go to college without declaring a major and take as many classes as you can, explore the world and find what you truly desire doing for the rest of your life. For the most part Engineering is the most evolving profession in the world, we live in a constantly changing time and working as an Engineer you're mostly going to be working on solving problems rather than using a skill to build something, if you're simply wanting to be taught something where you apply skill over and over without having to adapt and solve complex problems, don't go into Engineering. On to your little quotes there. The first quote is idiotic, however it also depends on what type of Engineering and the job you ultimately choose. Engineering is a broad profession and right out of college you will be using a lot of the math, most engineers don't use math later in their careers because (and this will address the managers rule the world quote) they become managers, you don't go to a buisness school and then manage engineers especially in the defense sector. As I stated earlier, you will need to adapt and solve complex problems as an engineer, this is what most of the education is geared toward, understanding the basics, understanding problems and how they've been solved and developing skills to solve problems. Your seccond quote suggests Managers are one profession and that Engineers are another and they cannot be one in the same. For starters no one rules the world and a managers job in many sectors make far less than many engineers right out of college, it's all relative. I've never heard of one managing profession, with a degree in Engineering you have the same potential to be a manager as other degrees afford, though you shouldn't just aim to be a manager, you should aim to find a profession you enjoy, then perhaps once you feel comfortable in that profession become a manager, this is how good leaders are made. The hardest course for me was Organic Chemistry and my first Calculus Class, O Chem wasn't a requirement it was something I was interested in and took up a majority of my time to understand, I ultimately got a C and that was with extremely hard work, the only other class I got below a B was an Economic's class my junior year which I took out of interest, again a C so again it's relative to the person and countless other variables. All in all it doesn't seem to me that you'd be interested in Engineering, I think you have the wrong ideas about your college education and need to take a step back and realize part of college is to invest in the ability to understand what you might enjoy doing the rest of your life. Cheers

A lot of wise words have already passed. Aptitude or vocational tests can definitely help a bit, give you a picture of yourself that it is hard to get internally especially when you are young. You can be sure some tests are quite realistic. FInd out about it and do them, and take note of what it says. Key points about engineering perspectives are pragmatism, practical and analytical, critical, not all seen as positive by others. These are also helpful for lawyers and politicians. Note how they can work with the enemy, and drop a subject that seemed to be a pet idea without blinking if it suits the situation. Not many engineers get into politics, that being because they are too busy maybe, or more interested in fiddling with their machines, getting things to work instead of fiddling with society. Plenty of lawyers do though. Those are manifestations of pragmatism. You will be interested in reality not faith, as well as team oriented, wanting a meaningful result and going around or past unnecessary nonsense. Don't suffer fools gladly. I think you can be an engineer without these perspectives, but you will be a happier and better engineer with them. It will come more naturally. Engineers are not necessarily hands on, and plenty do go into management, though it seems to me that the top is not engineers. If anything rules it is greed and the mighty dollar. You can also think that a lot of management jobs are unhappy and stressful, you do need a certain god like sense of your own worth and "I know I am right" to be at the top. The decisions at that level are not black and white or even grey, but muddy. Not necessarily admirable. Uni is for academics, I say that gently, nothing wrong with that or them. Uni is important, and maths and an understanding of science are important, particularly but not only physics. You can work around maths after uni, not so important in the workplace, because computer software is there to do that part now. If you don't already know aboout some key science like the laws of thermodynamics and fully understand the implications, hmmmm. You do seem intelligent, with a good work ethic. These are important to get through uni. I have had some experience in both sides, and while there is rivalry concerning the so called soft sciences, the truth is they are each hard in their own way. In Engineering it doesn't matter what someone says. The acid test is that it works or it doesn't (though meeting some other goals too). There is never enough money or time to do it how you would really like to do it. Anyone can build a bridge with infinite resources. Engineering is getting it done economically, and sufficiently, and quickly. It applies the worth of human knowledge.. Therefore you must make do, and find solutions. What you learn after uni is very important, though uni gives you the foundations, how to think about things, where to go for info. You may find you go through the first parts easily till you have to struggle with the higher concepts. That is fairly normal. Basically most of us see engineers as those who design things, it is applied science, but the line between applied and research depends where you work. Engineers are "can do" and often end up running all sorts of things. The side issues are health and safety, maintenance, operations, project management, some kinds of people management. Looks like you got a lot of long answers to wade through.

From the middle of your essay - any profession these days requires constant education and updates - the testing procedures in many and the expectations of bosses and clients demand it. Engineering is such a broad expanse that it is hard to give one answer to your query. An engineer whose job is fitting a production line into an existing building, specifying conveyor belts and production machines, will have far less to do with mathematics (and a lot more to do with actual detailed measurements) than a person faced with fitting a steel structure into a modern architect's design for a building that perches on two supports and cantilevers out over the street, especially in earthquake or hurricane country. An engineer who designs the material processing programs will have far more math needs than the engineer who uses those programs to make airplane parts of titanium and carbon fiber fit together and watches them function on the screen in simulation, not to mention simulating shipping and assembling them. If you believe that non-engineering courses are easy, then the math load of economics will surprise you and the detail required to prepare you for medicine (where you can immediately take lives if you blunder) will probably overwhelm you. Am I an engineer? Nope. I am a technologist - I have worked with computers and teaching and designing and inventing all my life. At the end of high school aircraft design was what I wanted. I was admitted to a very good engineering school and learned first that my study habits as a big frog in a small school environment were undeveloped. I had to leave that school because of poor grades in core subjects and did well in a lesser school, but found when I went up against statics and dynamics and harder math (and got better reading glasses) that what I liked was technology - gee whiz - not the nitty gritty detail work of engineering. I spent a good chunk of my life doing computer programming for small businesses and found people who were whizzes with computer chips, which I at least understood, that were bewildered at programming, which I excelled at. Yet when none of my clients wanted to go to Windows and programming for Windows got revised by MicroSoft every 3 years to a whole new model, I drifted and got left behind. Which applies to your desire to keep the same thing all your life - can't be done, in music, in management or in engineering.

Forget about the coursework. Focus on the real work. If you are going to have a career you are going to be doing the real work for a good long time. If you don't like doing it, you are not going to be happy. So go invent something! I expect that it isn't going to involve Fourier transforms. If you don't love it, there are other fulfilling ways to make a living.

Suggestion: Go to your Physics teacher and get involved in a design project: Egg Drop toothpick bridge rubber band car etc. Solve the design WITHOUT asking any of us how to do it. Get books and figure it out by yourself. Did you enjoy doing the project? If so, you have the makings of an engineer. If not, perhaps you should look elsewhere for a life' work.