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Hi TL.
I'm currently a third year majoring in Electrical Engineering @ UCSD and I am currently having doubts if I should stay in it or not. The courses have always been boring and difficult for me, but I stayed in the major just telling myself that it would get to be more fun in the future. Going into my third year, all it does is it get more boring, difficult, and annoying. The "hands-on" stuff that I was looking forward to when I started is a pain in the ass. It's not the stuff they showed us when we were touring the campus the first day. You work on a breadboard, tweaking the function generator to get the right reading on the oscilloscope for hours and that's that. My interest in this major is dwindling and seems to me that it will continue that way. I know it's kind of late to realize that this major doesn't seem to be for me, but I feel like I just can't stand it anymore.
I've been looking into other majors and found one that sort of interested me. This was the Management Science major. I was looking further into it and all seemed good since it would allow me to still graduate in 2012. However, after talking to my mother, she did not approve me in pursuing a path in business, saying stuff like "you have to lie in business to be successful, that's not you, you won't be able to get a job, I'm your mother, I know you the best". Basically, she wants me to stay the hell out of that field and stick to engineering. I knew that was coming since she really wanted me to be an engineer.. However, she did tell me, that if I really wanted to change majors, I should seek in the engineer path.
So I come here to ask you guys. Anyone in the electrical engineering field, did you feel this way at any time? Did you continue on and if so, how did you find the motivation?
Anyone in some other engineering field, would you recommend your major to me? If so, what do you do in your major and why do you like it?
Anyone in some sort of math/sci major, would you recommend your major to me? if so, what do you do in your major and why do you like it?
Thanks for helping me out, I'm really having a hard time right now on figuring out what I want to do. 
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Look and see if there is an option for "engineering management". It would keep your mother happy, would put your foot in the door of the management world, and would let you use your engineering experience so far.
I'm looking into the same thing (not that I dislike my major, but this seems like it may be a little more interesting and useful overall). What I've found is that I don't even need to commit myself to it until next year, because some of the introductary courses to either stream (structural/geotechnical or management) can be used as electives for the other stream.
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If you are paying for your education and it is not of your interest i would highly recommend switching to something else. If it doesnt interest you now, you will hate your job before even starting.
As for Management majors, i am currently a business student and find it interesting, it is a complete lie to say that you need to lie to go forward as a manager... i actually believe the opposite as if you are a lier it is easy for people to see through you and thus you will not be effective as a manager. You need to look out for what is best for you and if what your in right now isnt working... move on.
if your mother is paying for your education i would heavily recommend that you really convince her before switching majors due to the fact of losing your "funding"
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You said the Management Science major interested you, but what exactly about it caught your interest? You should have a very good idea of what you're switching into before you make the move, because it's no small decision. If that's truly what you want to do, in the end it's your life, your choice.
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I fucking hate science so I've been happily chilling in the business side of things
you don't have to lie to do well in management lol, you just have to be able to understand simple economics and sometimes take risks. I think you should always take your parents advice on things in life but with diminishing utility as you get older and can think for yourself and what you wanna do.
that said, don't think the grass is always greener. really think about this, especially since you're gonna lose like 30+ hours if you switch to business
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Don't listen to your mom, do something you enjoy, my dad always told me 'if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life'.
If you aren't sure, flip a coin, heads is stay EE, tails switch majors. You'll figure out what you want when the coin is in the air.
If your financial situation allows you to do an extra year, find something you truly enjoy, rather than something that will just let you finish up when you originally planned.
If you want help finding a new field, you'll have to provide us with additional details. Do you like lab work? Do you enjoy biology, chemistry, or physics?
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you're an adult now do what makes you happy man
SERIOUSLY
if it's not making you happy do not do it, that's the best advice ive ever gotten in life
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everybody has an intuitive sense of what is really important to them in life. don't listen to anybody who wants to get in your way. your mom, your dad, your friends or ANYONE. to expect anything less out of yourself is to not live
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On October 14 2010 15:08 mOnion wrote:
that said, don't think the grass is always greener. really think about this, especially since you're gonna lose like 30+ hours if you switch to business
That's always important to keep in mind for sure, but given the choice between doing something you dislike or switching to something that you may dislike, switching is the better move. Just don't rack up 150k in student loans trying to find a career...
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On October 14 2010 15:04 Barrin wrote:
Never let anyone dissuade you from finding your true place in life. Not even your own mother.
sucks but this is not practical in real life. If I have a kid and he wants to be a singer and he's a horrible singer, I'll smack some sense into him. Life is not made out of cherrys and donuts, you aren't necessarily good at what you like.
Though probably not drastic as my example sadly your parents in most circumstances know what's best for you. If parents see you as a passive person (or could be for some other reason), they will see you as 'not a business type' and sadly this is true.
However, there is need for a balance between what you like to do and what you can do. If you don't like engineering and cannot do it, you would be better off doing business, since it seems like you at least like it.
Best way is deciding based on philosophical approaches (ie being rational). One way to do this is by making a table and giving (your own) weighting and probability of outcomes then calculating which is the most favourable.
For example,
Successful Business 10/10w (10%) ~1p (10 x 0.1)
(best outcome; if I do business and I succeed but the chances are slim)
Failed Business 2/10w (90%) ~ 1.8p (2 x 0.9)
(bad outcome; but at least I tried to do what I like)
Overall = 2.8p out 10p
Successful Engineering 6/10w (80%) ~ 4.8p (6 x 0.8)
(good outcome; but still have that 'what if' back of my head)
Failed Engineering 0/10w (20%) ~ 0p (0 x 0.2)
(worst outcome; but the chance of this happening is slim)
Overall = 4.8p out of 10p
You still have to consider that successful business is your maximum gain policy (best outcome) and failed engineering is your minimum gain policy (worst outcome).
Overall though, most favourable outcome in the example above is:
Engineering (of course you need to use your own weighting and probabilty, my numbers =\= your numbers)
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Korea (South)11591 Posts
fuck the money, it doesn't do anything for you. if you want to be happy, do what makes you happy.
I as an accountant major, decided it wasn't for me, so i became a finance major, decided it wasn't for me. i then became a music performance major with classical guitar. did that for a year, i still enjoy it a ton but decided practicing for 8 hours a day wasn't for me. so i dropped the major and only play when i want to. right now, im taking this semester off, to figure out what i enjoy in life, and i'm using poker as my source of income. im thinking of applying to a culinary arts school to become a chef, as i have realized i really like making good tasting food.
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@ klm and "don't listen to your mom" people
I am paying for my education with loans / financial aid but that doesn't really make me feel I have the right to stray away from my mom's wishes. She brought me up after all, and she was practically begging for me to not go into the business field.
@monion
Yeah I thought what she said about the major was bullshit lol.
@team
Management just caught my eye because I was interested in econ in high school and enjoyed the one econ class I took during my college career, so I thought I'd try a business major out. I researched it over the internet and found the courses + career paths seemed interesting. Plus I am done with all the math prerequisites so I just need to take a few lower divs and can go straight into the upper divs.
My plan was to take some econ/whatever major i want to change to courses next quarter without officially changing majors yet to see if I'd like it even further.
@Mol
For further details, out of bio, chem, and physics, chem is the only subject that intrigues me. I am considering chem engineering but I'm afraid it'll put me way behind on schedule since I have to finish a couple lower div chem classes that can't be taken at the same time but I'll have to do more research. I'll have to consider a 5th year though I think.
@random
I just started upper divs for EE and it is killing me lol. So are you saying all engineering majors will do that? :x
@ooni
Thanks for your input! I'll try that.
Thanks for all the responses everyone.
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hi, ex-ee major here. this is my last qtr in university graduating in december.
i used to be a ee and comp sci double major. i find the math side of ee to be interesting but like you, i did not particularly enjoy the labs part of ee. after finding out that cs is going to give me a better future (in terms of job prospect) i dropped ee last spring in order to graduate this december (beginning of my 4th year) it was best decision i've made in my life. now i have a software engineering job with good pay waiting for me to start next year in nyc and it is something i enjoy more than doing stuff you do in ee.
so in my biased opinion, if you liked engineering or solving problems even a bit, consider the switch to comp sci or software engineering 
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Hi:
An unfortunate problem with most undergraduate lab courses is that they don't reflect what the subject is really about. One possibility is looking into whether there's any available undergrad research positions (use your own judgment in whether it will just be slavework w/ no real learning value, as is often the case, again unfortunately). At best, you enjoy it and gotten a nice recommendation out of it. At worst, you can now confirm your opinions about your major.
I confess I have no idea about the workload of EE majors, so maybe this isn't practical. I would never judge the content of a major by its teaching labs though. Your results may vary.
I say this because if sophomore organic chemistry lab encompassed everything I would do as a researcher, I would have gotten the hell out of the field already.
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On October 14 2010 15:47 CaucasianAsian wrote:
fuck the money, it doesn't do anything for you. if you want to be happy, do what makes you happy.
I as an accountant major, decided it wasn't for me, so i became a finance major, decided it wasn't for me. i then became a music performance major with classical guitar. did that for a year, i still enjoy it a ton but decided practicing for 8 hours a day wasn't for me. so i dropped the major and only play when i want to. right now, im taking this semester off, to figure out what i enjoy in life, and i'm using poker as my source of income. im thinking of applying to a culinary arts school to become a chef, as i have realized i really like making good tasting food.
Didn't know you attempted the music route. The practice regiment killed it for me too. That and having an unstable income which probably would never exceed what I'll be making my first year out of college.
Anyways, to OP.
I'm EE at Virginia Tech. I'm also a junior and I suffer through the same crap as you. Yes, it sucks. However, real engineering is NOT what you do in school.
It's important to know that EE allows you to do basically anything you want. If you like sitting around playing with circuits, I'm sure you can do that, but that's really a small niche of what people really do.
I strongly recommend sticking with the major. You're already this far and it'll set you up to have a stable source of income later, which means you can be completely independent instead of on your parents' couch. Even if you decide you don't like it, it's better to have a job that pays 80k to put yourself through school again or allow you to start up a business than have 80k in debts from graduating with a useless major.
If you really wanna talk more about it, throw me a PM.
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Working in something you don't like sucks, but being completely without options sucks a hell lot more. You're at a critical age, stop wasting time on stupid shit like games, the internet or friends and start doing some work. Work on whatever, sooner or later you will find something that is of your liking and you won't get distracted by garbage that won't leave you anything in the future.
As for your choice in career. If you're in engineering and you're just attending classes and doing homework then you're fucked dude. You need to take some initiative and do projects on your own. Actually that comes naturally because that's how you prove that you actually like your career. Like a software engineer that really enjoys his career can easily be seen throwing code everywhere as soon as his 4th semester.
That thing about science management, are you really sure you would like that? Like do you understand fully what does it entail or did you just decide you might like it from skimming over some university's description of it? Your mom probably knows you better than you know yourself. If the main thing in your mind is garbage like games, friends, internet, etc. then I wouldn't place too much faith in you to actually make something of that career.
Also, don't listen to the "don't go for the money" bs. That is just the way to stay mediocre when you're depending on your parents or other people for money. Making money should be your goal at this stage. If you're in engineering then having the goal of making money means that you will be focusing on designing and building shit that is actually worth selling. Little jobs like teaching in highschools or working as a technician or as a salesman or whatever can teach you a lot of skills and you do them for money.
Also you should plan and envision yourself in 5 years or something. If you can't imagine that, then you know that you're wasting time and need to start working on your life.
If you eliminate all that crap, then you may even start liking your career. It's not like each person has a calling from birth to do x.
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Doesn't really matter what you graduate in, life can take you in any direction. Having a college degree in a 'respectable' major (such as EE) will help you get jobs anywhere. If you really really can't stand it, then switch, but I promise it doesn't matter a whole lot. I'm sure it seems like it does now, because it's your whole life, but it isn't as important as you think 5 or 10 years down the road. The important thing is that you _got_ the degree.
But your mom's right, a science degree is better than some management degree. If your determined to switch, you could try CS. I started as a Math major, realized it was more work than I was really willing to do, and just had more fun doing CS. Loved almost every class, even when they were hard. And now? Yeah, I don't do coding at all. So go figure.
Good luck!
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On October 14 2010 15:04 Barrin wrote:
Never let anyone dissuade you from finding your true place in life. Not even your own mother.
Because we know everything. (art major cough)
Listen to your mother Business isnt a very stable field. Relax you go to UCSD (Same school as me) so it shows you have what it takes to turn things around. Make a list of majors that you can reasonably transfer to check it with the dean, then choose the best choice from there. If you are attending on loans you pretty much can't extend ur stay by 2+ more years because that would be disastrous. I am a computer science major because i loved anything entirely theoritcal/abstract plus it has great job prospects and a good future ( dont listen to the news, random internet people, or wikipedia research it at bls.gov and reliable sources). At the end of the day you are working to get money, I suggest you not put so much emphasis on what you are studying and look more into what career you want to get into and one that would fit into your ideal lifestyle.
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EPT
