What do you dislike about your engineering career?

This is a tough question for those of us who have spent our entire career in engineering related fields. Naturally, there are some areas which I loved more than others. In school, I struggled with thermodynamics but excelled at heat transfer which doesn't necessarily make any sense. In my career, there were certain jobs that I didn't enjoy very much. For example, anything related to engines and transmissions (also related to thermodynamics) was always a struggle for me to enjoy and do my best.

However, as an engineer, you have the ability to write your own career path. If there is something you are doing that you don't enjoy, change it. I have friends who graduated as engineers and are now in the fashion and casino industry. The bounds are limitless as engineering prepares you for so many careers. Yes, you won't like everything, but you will find a very enjoyable career!

Engineering is a very broad field so if you study engineering you can choose from a huge variety of jobs which all have pros and cons. I have had some engineering jobs that I didn't enjoy so much and others that I have found very fulfilling! I will never regret studying engineering because it has opened so many doors to me and so I can choose from many different paths and I have found the one that is right for me. I have stayed in a very technical research role while others I studied with went into project management or even into something completely different like going on into medical school, law or finance.

So, I think an engineering degree will only open doors for your future rather than getting you 'stuck' in one role. As long as you enjoy your studies, I think it is the right choice and if in the future you find yourself in a job you don't like so much you can always change to something new!

Best of luck with your decisions!

Hello! What a great question. First and foremost, I applaud you for understanding your likes and contemplating career choices while in high school. It will be important in college and class selections.

Secondly, I wanted to answer your question, “have you ever regretted going into engineering?” I have to say, I have never regretted studying Engineering. The courses were challenging and competitive. However, I always learned new things. College gave me confidence and courage to continue to learn new things. I applied this throughout my career and life.

So the actual question, “what do you dislike about your engineering career?” I hope this is not too cliche – I wish we had more female engineers. Working with mostly male engineers was good in its own way but I wish I had more female colleagues starting off my career. It would have made my career more fulfilling, sharing similar experiences together and lifting each other up. It will be different for you since the female engineering student population is about 25%. When I was going to school, it was about 8%.

My second “dislike” is my management position being too political. Early in my career, I loved being strategic, planning and leading with engineering. So I joined management. As I moved up through the ranks, it got more political. Unfortunately, my understanding is that this is unavoidable with big companies independent of profession.

I hope I gave you a glimpse of what my career was like as a female engineering leader. May your career be as fulfilling and adventurous as mine was for me.

Engineering has opened doors for me. Even though there are parts of it I like less than others, it taught me about both structured and creative problem solving which is applicable to so many things both in the business world and personally. For example, I love planning and troubleshooting out home improvement projects because as an engineer I have learned so much about electricity, how mechanical tools work, the forces I need to balance, and even chemistry, like mixing and applying grout. Having an engineering background has made me feel empowered.

No job or career is going to be perfect. There will always be things that you don't like to do, but it shouldn't impede you from moving forward with your plans. As an example: Someone who has trained to be a Veterinarian, should have a love of animals. But who "loves" cleaning up after them?

So I hate to focus on the negative aspects of being an engineer, because I absolutely love my career. Working through a problem or planning out a longer term project energizes me. What does not energize me is spreadsheets and budget justifications. But it is part of the business and to get to the fun stuff. It is a required task.

Don't give up on a dream because it is too expensive or it is a lot of work. If you are energized by Engineering then go for it. Find the niche in the engineering field that best fits your personality. In the long run, you will be happier with the good and the bad.

I love engineering broadly. There are specific subjects that I don’t like, but the value of not liking some subjects is that it helps you decide which parts of engineering you do like. For example, physical chemistry and thermodynamics were not my favorite subjects, but mechanics, physics, and materials engineering were. Thus I ended up becoming a Materials Engineer.

There is nothing I regret about going into engineering. If you like the engineering stuff you've done, then I would highly recommend it! It is a challenge and will be a lot of work, as compared to some other majors, but the jobs do pay well. Additionally, you can get paid summer, internship and co-op positions - and again - they pay well. Always check with your engineering professors, as you can also get on-campus research jobs as an undergrad, which helps pay for things and you gain great insight.

There were definitely classes I did not like, but were required. I learned what I had to and steered my path in a direction that I did not have to do that type of work. But I never regretted going into engineering. In college it was frustrating that my friends in other majors did not have the same amount of classes, labs nor homework, but all that is necessary to be a good engineer. Still, I do not regret it one bit. I suspect you will not either!

I highly recommend engineering as a career. I have been an engineer for 30+ years and have done a lot of jobs. Most of them I have loved, very few I didn’t. Those I didn’t like were because they were very “easy” or very repetitive. However, that has never made me regret that I took this path. If you have a curious mind then you can be a good engineer.

I wanted to be a professional is all I knew. I didn’t know what I was getting into, although I knew I had to be an engineer. So I went with the flow in the engineering course. Thinking back, I wasn’t excelling at maths. I was passing with average score for maths, even had to appear twice for maths. However, please note that maths subject does not last as long as your engineering course. Maths is generally over midway in engineering college path and then you start getting into specialised engineering topics such as robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning etc. depending on your choice. So just take everything with a pinch of salt and keep moving ahead without regrets. Everything is not going to be our choice. What we cannot change, we have to accept.