Engineering, Continue or Not?

[Shaul]

I am finishing now an unsuccessful first year in the studies of Mechanical Engineering and I'm feeling lost. Let me backup a little and explain to you why I started them in the first place. Firstly, Nature, contribution and creativity were in the list of values I formed in the Life Purpose Course. Secondly, I like the feeling of working with my hands and I possess a general technical sense. Bearing that in mind I went to these studies with the idea of contributing to the environment through engineering.

However, when it came to the actual studies, I found them to be dull. I felt huge resistance whenever I sat down to study which manifested in procrastination and an immediate tiredness as soon as I did start to study. It's as if my body told me "nope, I'm not gonna allow you to study that". I don't have ADHD, it's just that math and physics courses don't excite me.

I wouldn't feel peaceful if I'd leave the university now, because I feel I might miss that which is beyond theoretical studies. For example, I want to participate in an international project in the uni called "Engineers Without Borders" where they head to undeveloped countries and provide them with solutions to increase their current quality of life. That being said, even if I do participate in it, I would still need to take courses.

What should I do then? Suck it up? Grind through or look for a different direction?

 

[Snader]

I'm an engineer and through working in project management I've already seen different areas of engineering field enough and contemplated these things enough to say with pretty high confidence, that the actual work will have very little to do with the studies, besides the necessary certificates or some necessary software skills or stuff like that you might need to have. From research side I have no experience of, so can't say about that, but pretty much everywhere else what matters the most is the attitude you take when you graduate and you step into business life. You sell yourself as a human, not a robot.

I had very progressive and achievement oriented mindset when I started working as an engineer and that way I ended up acquiring some very important business skills. Skills not only from my field, but also skills of human interaction and socialization. I later realized that I can not live up to my values there and I need to make a change, so I decided to create an exit plan. The problem wasn't engineering per se, but the more or less toxic structure that is fueling the field that I had to be part of. I finally found myself a niche, a market place where I could express my values, while also doing what I'm good at and what I like, while minimizing the things I don't like, while also keeping it profitable and market wise to create a living out of it. I'm still working towards fully manifesting that, but it's looking really promising.

Point of telling this is that I'm pretty sure I couldn't have found such a great niche had I not attained those important skills through that progressive grind and experience.

I'm sure there is a way for you to do your thing through engineering, but it's still vague, as you are still really unaware of the reality of business world. Real experience opens possibilities and it doesn't come from school but from the hustle in the desert. Anyway, you need to be interested in the field in general, which you seem to be, so I wouldn't be too worried about some boring courses in school.

I like to think serious personal development work as an insurance in that field. If I had not been interested in developing my psychology when I started getting into business world, I'm sure I would still be a sheep and super stuck in the system. It is very tempting and it has so many mechanics to suck you into it for good. I think it's important that if you jump into something like engineering, you are really progressive and perhaps already looking into creating your own business or at least having an idea or agenda of making it possible for you to do your thing and live by your own values, no matter what it takes. You need to lead your career with integrity. 

Combining engineering and serious personal development work is a killer cocktail!

[b_woo]

Hi Snader, are you able to elaborate more on what you went on to do?

I am pretty much in the same position now I feel.

Any more insight would be greatly appreciated. 

 

 

 

[Snader]

@b_woo I might share more in the future if I ever succeed. Too little tangible results so far and too much talk already. 

As an additional insight I could share, that what I figured out for myself is not anything very special. It's something that's being done already and something I've thought about earlier, but didn't go for, because I couldn't figure out a way to do it the way I like. I thought it cannot be done in a different way than everyone else is doing it and I didn't just want to compete with others in their toxic ways.

There are some technical skills that I learned that gave me more confidence to go for it, but I think understanding human and collective development gave me super important trust to start doing this. To me it feels like that learning to understand which values are arising in my society and how my field plays role in it, allowed me to start bringing something new into the niche that nobody else is not really bringing yet.

So I kind of decided to bring new ways of doing into a thing that's been done for a long time before already. The current values of the niche are kind of getting old and need refreshment.

But these are still pretty much empty words when in comes to REAL results. Only motivation, trust and some material baby steps are created so far. It could be that this is a dead end and I need to come up with a new plan, who knows.

[Bob Seeker]

@Shaul What do you envision yourself doing if you could do anything in the world?

Consider this question from scratch again, but if you really think it is within the area of engineering, get more specific about what that looks like. What type of work you really want to be actually doing in the day to day.

 If that work requires this type of studying to get you started then maybe it is worth it. Maybe this type of studying is not actually necessary.

You’ve got to keep thinking about it and gaining more clarity. Maybe meet and talk to people who are doing what you actually want to be doing. It’s hard to think clearly without concrete examples or experience.

[Shaul]

@Snader Thank you Sadhguru with Iron Man's hands.

On 8/2/2021 at 10:04 PM, Snader said:

but it's still vague

That's a correct description of my situation. Very unclear at the moment.

@Bob Seeker Do I really think it is within the area of engineering? No. But in order to overcome my indecisiveness regarding the topic I finally went with Picasso's quote - "To know what you are going to draw, you have to begin drawing" ;thus, I started my studies. My goal this year was to immerse myself in the projects that the uni offers and to expose myself to as much new people and ideas to broaden my scope. Covid had other plans this year and so the studies were done remotely... Given the current circumstances, I think it would be best that I stay in the uni, do this work next year and try to bring clarity to this issue as fast as possible. 

You know, another thing that frustrated me this year was that by talking to other students in my class, they didn't seem to be troubled at all by topics like: Is that truly their life purpose? How do they feel about the courses? At best, they have a general sense of direction. They kept it simple, executed like robots, passed the exams and moved on , whereas I felt like I was self sabotaging myself thinking about these things. Maybe I am just getting into specifics about my future life too soon?

Edited August 4, 2021 by Shaul

[Snader]

2 hours ago, Shaul said:

You know, another thing that frustrated me this year was that by talking to other students in my class, they didn't seem to be troubled at all by topics like: Is that truly their life purpose? How do they feel about the courses? At best, they have a general sense of direction. They kept it simple, executed like robots, passed the exams and moved on

Yup, most of them are sheeps. Some of them are probably concerned about those questions but they don't have room to ask them, because the majority (who don't care) basically decides what are the right questions to ask. They're not conscious of what they're doing. Most of them just want a decent career to look good by social standards with decent salary to maintain the common life they think they want. Big chunk of them will later in life find themselves miserable and uninspired and they will ether commit to a toxic and boring life or they will make a big change and start moving the trajectory of their whole life.

You're lucky that you're already asking those questions.

[hyruga]

Why don't you take the life purpose course by Leo? Then you can find out if engineering is truly your main purpose in life.

In the meantime, you can also read books like The Power of your subconscious mind to know more about your inner wants and also search for more answers.

[Shaul]

@hyruga Thank you for the book recommendation, I will check it.

As I mentioned in the first post, I did take the course. I didn't manage to finish it though. When it comes down to the practical part of the course, it offers guiding questions but it's up to you to generate the answers. The course won't just tell you what fits you and what doesn't. I wasn't able to answer a lot of questions past the value's section, therefore I had to take action to give me new feedback. 

[Bob Seeker]

7 hours ago, Shaul said:

My goal this year was to immerse myself in the projects that the uni offers and to expose myself to as much new people and ideas to broaden my scope. 

Sounds reasonable.

7 hours ago, Shaul said:

Maybe I am just getting into specifics about my future life too soon?

Edited 5 hours ago by Shaul

It’s good to be seriously considering these things at your age, you’re headed in the right direction.

[Nick_98]

Designing your life by Bill Burnett This book is for you. I know this is not a specified answer, but while reading the book you will find the answer for yourself , and the answer that you going to retrieve for yourself would be way more useful than any answer given in the forum. 

Brief summary about the book

This book implement you with the mindset and thinking strategies, and the action you need for building your career and having a fulfilled joyful career life. This book works on your beliefs and assumptions about whatever career, job image you have. This book Gives you examples of people who had career problems , and how they managed using the book's advice to go through them ,tackle them, and win in the longterm. I'm currently a student but I'm following every bit , and taking action. Remember this book is about taking action , not just fancy theories , it's mostly a practical book. Goodluck buddy.

To make it even more luring for you there is a concept in this book that talks about similar situations to you. to keep it short , and i'm not quoting from the book directly i'm just ranting. The story basically was a girl fantasizing about having a restaurant , and believed it would be the best job for her , she loved the idea and her imaginations went big on that. Years gone and she opens a restaurant and then realize it's not really for her , she just didn't like the work. The solution that the book suggests is a concept called "Prototyping" , You don't jump in the pool right away, you test if the water is too cold , or too warm for you, You do that by either asking people who had similar job you're aiming for " What do you love and hate about your job?" , and then put yourself in their shoes, and see if you would enjoy that. OR you could do that by actually doing small jobs related to the field, that can give you a little bit of an idea of what you like and what you don't like. The book talks about approaching life like a designer , a designer gathers data then do the action , repeat the process gather more data and repeat another action , look at the result , gather more data, and so on. When you're designing your career you kinda could go through the same process if you look at it in that frame , you want to gather data about yourself, what you like and don't like , do an action , see the result , Did u like it ? Yes/NO , Do another action , Gather data about yourself , etc..etc.. NO one has figured himself completely right when he was 5 years and said I wanna be a doctor, and it goes on when we grow, we need to test ourselves , instead of falling to imagination loops and when you actually go to work you feel stuck. Anyway , this book can't be summarized in this thread , It's HUGE and has so many juice in it , Read it , work with its concepts , do the actions , then report back to the forum. This is just one concept of ALOT I haven't shared from the book. Goodluck. 

Just one more concept I would like to share

I'm just editing this reply one more time because there is this concept that I really love in the book. Well, to keep it short and simple, there's something called an anchor problem, and this is usually how people get stuck in their lives , and even waste more energy on problems that won't get them unstuck. People could get stuck for days, Months, years, Decades, on anchor problems. The book talks about a concept (again like a designer) called Reframing. Which means when you have a problem , that's not actionable , you can't do it for some reason , you have to come up with ideas (also covered in the book how to come up with ideas) To turn the anchor problem into another problem that could be actionable , and that will move you forward , instead of being stuck. This concept is really lovely, it tells you how simply by reframing the problems that you create and get stuck on , you could simply get unstuck. Top of that , There are examples about how people applied that concept into their lives and produced change, this will make the concepts get really understood and practical in your perspective. That's it, No more edits.

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by Nick_98

[Shaul]

@Nick_98 Thanks man. Edit as much as you like

Essentially, the book teaches you how to be a strategist in life? Sounds very useful. Looks like I have some homework to do.