What does it take to become an engineer?

Hi Emma! The path to becoming an engineer typically includes obtaining a 4-year college degree from an accredited engineering program at a university. Some go on to obtain a 2 year master's degree (to get some more specialized education before starting a career - for me that was for research & development, failure analysis, corrosion, etc.) or a 4+ year PhD (required for some research jobs in industry, required for academia research or teaching jobs). The bachelor's degree can sometimes start with a few years of  community college, or sometimes folks will even start in a technical vocational program to become a skilled technician or mechanic (factory manufacturing processes, microscopy, etc) before later becoming engineers on the job, though that very specific experience would limit the breadth of engineering roles you would be qualified for in your field.

Until college, there are many summer camps and internships available to learn more about what engineers do in various fields to see what tasks and jobs interest you most! I did these too and it helped tremendously! Even after I started college as an engineering major! EG has some great resources compiled here if you scroll down to the "Explore Careers" section: https://www.engineergirl.org/5/Get-There

And definitely feel free to reach back out with any other questions! We're all happy to help around here!