Engineering students are supposed to be examples of practicality and rationality,
but when it comes to my college education I am an idealist and a fool.
In high school I wanted to be an electrical engineer and, of course, any sensible
student with my aims would have chosen a college with a large engineering
department, famous reputation and lots of good labs and research equipment.
But that's not what I did. I chose to study engineering at a small liberal-arts
university that doesn't even offer a majorin electrical engineering. Obviously,
this was not a practical choice; I came here for more noble reasons. I wanted a
broad education that would provide me with flexibility and a value system to
guide me in my career. I wanted to open my eyes and expand my vision by
interacting with people who weren't studying science orengineering.
My parents, teachers and other adults praised me for such a sensible choice.
They told me I was wise and mature beyond my 18 years,and I believed them.
I headed off to college sure I was going to have an advantage over those
students who went to big engineering "factories" where they didn't care if you
have values or were flexible. I was going to be a complete engineer: technical
genius and sensitive humanist all in one. Now I'm not so sure. Somewhere along
the way my noble ideals crashed into reality, as all noble ideals eventually do.
After three years of struggling to balance math, physics and engineering courses
with liberal-arts courses, I have learned there are reasons why few engineering
students try to reconcile engineering with liberal-arts courses in college. The
reality that has blocked my path to become the typical successful student is that
engineering and the liberal arts simply don't mix as easily as I assumed in high
school. Individually they shape a person in very different ways; together they
threaten to confuse. The struggle to reconcile the two fields of study is difficult.