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The difficulty in studying engineering is overrated. This article is describing a correlation, not a causation. If you're interested in what you're studying, spending extra time studying it isn't a chore. The engineering students I knew either loved what they learned or loved what they would accomplish with it - aka projects, service, careers, etc. The students who I knew that were unhappy (I was one) did not have that kind of interest, even though we did well. That's a hard feeling to overcome, if you're spending a lot of time studying with no sense of purpose or intrinsic motivation, while your peers are excited about their work. I remember interviewing and visiting engineering companies, trying to imagine myself working there. For all the talk about engineering teaching you how to "solve hard problems," most jobs were not at all the creative, inventive type I had thought. Sometimes, students come in with the wrong understanding of a major or career type. For example, "I liked studying chemistry in high school, so let me study chemical engineering," thinking they're the same. Sometimes, students find that they were more passionate about something else, like music. I or my peers didn't transfer into a liberal arts program, following the article's train of thought. We made our own paths instead. To this day, I take a fair amount of math courses. Instead of focusing on hard or soft subjects, schools need to focus on training good thinkers who know how to learn, reason, and implement in a wide variety of styles. |