The Engineer's Dilemma

The most confused person on earth is the third year B.Tech engineering student who is not very much interested in his branch. (Ladies, esp. feminists, please forgive me if do not say the polite "his or her", I am too lazy for that.) I have initiated this discussion with many of my ilk, and few disagree.

Let me define my ilk. We come in all sizes, shapes, weights and heights, and from amazing different geographical and cultural backgrounds, and can be classified into two main types. The first is the one who either had or thought he had a lot of interest in this particular field, and worked very hard to get into that branch in some institute which he thought was esteemed in the academia. The other is one (very much a like a friend of mine) who did nothing in his 11th and 12th (plus two, as some call it) and was so overwhelmed when he cleared AIEEE (which he thought was a tough exam to clear, but which apparently gives ranks to every person who cares to write it), that in a fit of "man!-now-that-i-have-got-admission-here-i-should-not-leave-it" took whatever he could get in the great institute.

Anyway, for people like us first year whizzes past us, and second year is like nirvana - we become enlightened in the sense that we know how disenlightened we were ! The horrible realization dawns upon us that what we thought was or would be interesting, is not interesting to us at all. There are others around us who absolutely love what they are doing and seem to find the subjects very interesting (like another friend of mine who grunts and yelps with orgasmic delight whenever he sees videos of rockets and aeroplanes). But we are the guys who take more interest in other things, which seem inane in the context and the course, but which would have been very helpful had we been doing something else. By the time we reach third year, the serious guys are already talking about scary things like MS, internship at engineering or software firms, "fundu" projects and the mother of all nightmares and the father of all nighthorses GATE-MTech.

We, however face the big dilemma - what should we do after we pass out from here ? A corresponding person pursuing a degree in medicine or law or any other major branch will never face this problem of choice. The moment he enrols himself in the medicine/law program, barring a few exceptional cases, he knows that he will be a doctor/lawyer in life. Not so for an engineer. We could do higher studies in a vast assortment of fields - engineering itself (within which also do we face so many choices that it makes our heads swim), law, management, etc, etc. Whew...

Take MS in the US for e.g. Choosing the field, and within the field the track, and then choosing the appropriate university and the program is very confusing, to say the least. As I am about to finish my third year, you can imagine the choices I am bombarded with !

All I can say is God help me ! And as I am an atheist, I doubt whether even God will help me. Darn !