This is engineering.

[crankyoldman]

It's over. Almost had a minor breakdown last night after my last "real" final. I just... I am full of angst over it all right now. If I end up failing thermo again over that final being over bullshit, I might just wig out. In an attempt not to be a complete whiny whiner, I've tried to keep school complaints to a minimum; they still happened, but we all need to let off steam. But to put it in perspective, this was probably the single hardest semester I've had since starting college, and what really made it hard was a lot of my friends that I would study with had graduated on me. "But you should be able to do it on your own!" Well, some parts you can, others you can't. Especially in classes like Aerodynamics where I was not only trying to get help out of a professor that didn't want to teach, but also dealing with high averages, like in my Dynamics class (which I actually LIKED, but it was a graduate level class, and in grad school, a C is failing). And I even had friends in Dynamics.

Honestly kids, don't go into engineering unless you are 100% sure you won't die from stress. If you have a heart condition too. XD



I hate this period before the grades come out. I want to know. Yet I don't. Yet I do. Words cannot describe the envy I've felt over some of you fretting over whether you have an A or not in a class. All I need to do is pass. Can't even do that for some (like my math class, which I was informed I couldn't fix mid-semester). I hadn't allowed myself to really let that all sink in until now, because if I let the negativity and doom and gloom take over it'll just bring down the things I am doing well in. Like I'm pretty fucking DAMN sure I passed Structures (and passed it well). Hell, in the presentation this morning our group was the only one he didn't have many changes to talk about concerning our display. And the other stabilizer group had LED lights on theirs. I know I passed Dynamics too, because I held on, even if I set the low bound (anything below me was failing, I'm not kidding. I love Prof California).

I mean, it's just grades. But at the end of May, I'll have been in undergrad for six years. Six years! Well, including the semester I took off. So maybe 5 and a half full time. I had friends (not in engineering, ha ha) that graduated in three. My sidekick graduates like, tomorrow. I'm the last one in my group still in school that is not in graduate school. I have a job, but I can't be under the 'permanent' status and get benefits until I have a degree. I just want my fucking piece of paper already!

I don't like to blow my own horn often (except if it involves a cool hat) because there are people smarter, more dedicated, better. If I were really dumb, they would have gotten me out of the program years ago. And as my dad told me, we rolled the dice this semester. A normal sane person would not have taken the course load I did. And it's not because of the higher level classes--my 500 level and 400 level classes are the ones I passed, for sure. No, it's the one fucking 200 level and the other 300 level class that are giving me fits.

I know my stuff. I may be a little spacey occasionally and not have all the plane names memorized, but I know my stuff. When I step outside of academia, I sound really fucking smart. I mean, I got hired after my first semester of college. They don't give people jobs from this college easily. You have to stand out in order to get that to happen. And when I was foolish and focused too much on what I thought was something better (marriage, a personal life--I'm not kidding, you seriously should put these things on hold in order to pass engineering), I got hired again for something fun and interesting and with a lot of responsibility.

And it's so frustrating to see that all that I am, all that I put in (which was quite a lot this semester, I mean, I've had bad semesters that I was being a lazy alcoholic, but this was certainly not one of those semesters) doesn't translate into some arbitrary numbers. That some smug bastard of a professor that judged me as a slacker based on a lab that I was pretty much submarined in over some bitter teammate can make me feel just... unworthy.

I'm so damn close. At the start of this year, I had only 28 credits left. Such a small number. Nearly all the blanks in my plan of study worksheet are filled. I don't want to let this all upset me, because I'm almost done. But god, these mixed signals are really getting to me. I'm fantastic on the job. I love working, I love solving problems, I feel alive when I'm actually working things out and doing them, and applying them and all the things associated with working. And yet academia says I'm stupid because given two hours and no resources but a booklet of tables and a sparse pre-determined equation sheet I can't figure out some arbitrary number for, I don't know, a theoretical reheat cycle that wouldn't even WORK in real life.

I know kids from my class that are in grad school because they can't operate in the real world at all, are too smug in their superiority to be polite, and they get the grades. What is it I'm doing wrong? Are they right? Am I right?

I could be worse off. I'm very lucky in a lot of things. My parents aren't hounding me about school because hey, I'm paying for it. I have the ability to pay for my own school, due to my ability to make contacts. I can actually call my dad and tell him that I may end up failing three out of the six classes I was taking this semester and he'll just tell me to calm down, drink some coffee and that it'll work out. I'm lucky I have the sort of employer that is flexible, that wants my expertise bad enough they're willing to help me finish school and possibly fund my grad school (note: I'm not going for engineering grad school. I'm trying something different, but related. Infomatics really sounds useful and interesting and not math dependent. XD). Hell, I'm lucky that my girlfriend has her own life too and wants me to continue my own goals and isn't demanding I go move out with her and actually comes to visit me without complaining about it.

I'm especially blessed that I recovered from being a COMPLETE idiot and am still in the game AT ALL.

I mean, I'm calming down now, because I'm remembering WHY I did this. Why instead of picking something I could do without thinking (I love and respect you liberal arts majors, really, but your disciplines are so intuitive to me that I can slack off majorly without repercussion. This doesn't make me smarter.) I picked something that I had to work at. It's because deep down, I love science, I love discovery, but I like science at its most practical. I love science that I can see, and touch and smell. I love science that turns math into something so amazing that it literally brings me to tears. I love that now, after so many years, when I hear people talking about certain things casually, or someone's car breaks down or someone has a question, I know the methods, the ways, the feel for it that I can answer.

It's like being sorceress, in a way. There is real magic to it. Understanding, and I mean understanding the laws of the universe really turns it on its head. Hell, I went into college as an athiest, and I'd say I'm pretty spiritualist now.

I only wish everyone could find their passions so firmly. And with less trouble. XD Maybe it's the trouble that makes it worth it. It's more than just wanting to show up snotty professors now. It's wanting to create. Be it writer, engineer, or artist, we are all in the same boat, I suppose. Just I had to go swim outside it for a while and hope I didn't drown. In keeping with metaphor.

tl;dr: Holy shit, I think I just went through the five stages of grief in an LJ entry.

~Cendri

Comments

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

You make these great entries and I want to reply with something deep and think-y, but I can't because I am in SUCH A RAGE at universities that all I can do is froth. Froth froth froth. I've worked in lots of departments at lots of places, and while I'm not going to say the real world makes tons of sense, it is a MUCH better judge of who is "smart" and who is "not" than graduate school. You are on the right track, IMO. Sometimes you just have to put your head down and play the damn game to get out of there. I know exactly how much that sucks.

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

I mostly had to get it OUT OF MY HEAD to bring back my zen-like calm, and it worked. I mean, I didn't end on a false positive note. I really do feel better just letting out all that pressure.

And hell, if I failed Thermo again, I'm taking it somewhere else and transferring it in. Fuck the ME department here. Same with the math department. I don't care HOW I get that piece of paper, I am getting it so I can move on with my life.

Oh and I have good links for my next entry for the solidarity-ness.

~Cendri

[lassarina]

I think all engineering programs are insane. I watch my friends who did engineering at NU and I wonder why on God's green earth someone would put themselves through that, but I guess your entry helped me see a little bit of it (the boy is like you, he's passionate about HOW THINGS WORK and making them work and DOING stuff. Me, I'm one of those lazy-ass liberal arts majors who sailed through college on a B+/A- average because I did history, which requires no brain. I know I did it and I'm vaguely ashamed of it.)

I'm hoping for the best for you. *drop-kicks Thermo*

ETA: OMG worst icon choice ever I am SO SORRY. It's my default. x_x;

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

HA HA IT'S OK. You changed it before I even NOTICED. I don't look for hidden meaning in icon choices, no worries.

And hell, I know that Liberal Arts does not mean Populated by Slackers. Not every engineer is passionate about what they do, sometimes they're just good at academia (and I then want to stab them in the eye). It just looks reeeeally cushy to me sometimes, from where I'm sitting. I think everyone that really enjoys something has to put in their time sometime; maybe not as much during college, but trying to make it as a writer? EGADS I'd never do that in a HUNDRED YEARS. It's like, 100% hobby for me, so I don't atrophy that part of my brain. XD

So don't be ashamed, nothing really comes easy.

~Cendri

[lassarina]

Someday I would absolutely positively love to make my living as a writer. Since that's unlikely, I'll stick to the finance world to pay my rent and do writing in my free time (of which, frankly, I have a lot, and that's awesome.)

I am, however, convinced that the one liberal arts major designed to make you NEVER EVER WANT TO LOOK AT THE SUBJECT AGAIN is writing. I fled the writing program at NU like the hounds of hell were at my heels.

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

We pay our pounds of flesh in different ways. XD Going to go channel Turing and Tesla now.

[angelari.livejournal.com]

I'm totally convinced that Literature is the degree where they take people who love to read and attempt to cure them of it.

[lassarina]

I would agree with that. I actually developed a far greater love of critical reading in fandom, after I escaped the clutches of Lit 335.

[qudaitsewukong.livejournal.com]

Well, college took me seven and I'm back in it now. So it could be worse. ;)

Even if you only pass 3/6, that's still three more you're done with. Professors may be assholes (I've had my share in liberal arts, in business, and in computers) but that doesn't mean you're not smart. I don't think you need me to tell you that, though, not really.

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

I know, but the doubt happens and sometimes I work through it in the course of a livejournal entry. Fuck therapy. XD Who needs therapy when you have a public outlet for your hopes and fears?

Academia is full of ass. Sev and I are threatening to do a research study on Research Asshole Professors and the harm they do in departments. XD

~Cendri

[ssugrimgirl.livejournal.com]

You know, that sounds like a paper I could get behind... And I have useful stories erm i mean research for both sides of the aisle (science and liberal arts)

[tijuana-pirate.livejournal.com]

Hrm, *two cents*.

My dad is an engineer - and a damned good one - and he always says that the real world in engineering is completely different from what people manage to see in college. Ten years down the road, you're just going to be writing grant proposal after proposal anyways. Being able to work in a team - to be able to grasp complex concepts and organize a plan of action - those are things that may (or may not) be taught well in college/uni. I know that in Bio we manage that better in some courses than others; I rather imagine that it's the same thing in engineering.

In the end, nobody's going to be asking you to do math problems for days on end (I love telling snooty engineers this who are comfortable with their A+ averages and watching their faces fall. *evil grin*). It was the same kind of rage that I felt when I almost failed my microbiology course. Nobody in real biology would ask you to memorize bizarre protein synthesis pathways and consider that a valid measure of how clever you are as a person.

Grades are arbitrary, to a certain extent but - having sat on the other side of the table for a little while - I can understand why we need some kind of basis of comparison for students. Of course, in biology it's a bit different because we're often asking students to understand concepts and then explain their ideas - which is really what real world science is about: understand a concept, generate an idea, and test it.

Personally, I have to say that I have a lot of respect for students who go through different time periods in college and still manage to pull through. Some people have a really easy time through college and, surprise surprise, finish quickly and easily. I sometimes correct my peers, saying that a grade in and of itself doesn't always match a student's capability. Nobody knows what someone could have gone through to get that C.

That being said, you're almost there Cendri. I have a lot of respect for you for sticking with this. I know that it's depressing but I think that your father is right. Wait until you get those grades - worrying right now won't help you. Then, make your decisions.

Courage, ma belle. <3

-T. pirate

[drakonlily.livejournal.com]

I think that you will do fine. The thing about you is that you need time and space. Watching you grow into what you want to do is amazing. You just need space to grow, like a creeper not a houseplant.

And the problem with being a jack of all trades is it takes time to figure out what you really want to do. Not a damn thing wrong with that.

And I understand where you are coming from with classes. Smart is one of those strange labels that's never really fit. Take care.

Also, weather has turned bad. May be driving out tonight. Will be in touch