Warning: This is kind of long, but it makes a good point, I promise!
First, make sure engineering is something *you* really want to go into. When I joined FIRST I had a blast building robots and I learned a ton of great stuff from my mentors. Junior year, when I had to start thinking about where I wanted to go to school and what I wanted to go for, I talked to my team mentors and they told me, "Well, you work on the pit crew - how about mechanical engineering? And MTU's a great school for that - you should apply!" So I thought "Yeah! Engineering! This is what I want to do!"
My orchestra teacher had a different opinion. She thought I should go to school for music. I was seated second chair in my orchestra, so obviously I was talented. She talked about going to Lawrence University, in my hometown. It was a little more expensive but, "my kind of school" she said. So I thought, "Yeah! Music! This is what I want to do!"
I then talked to my English teacher. She told me not to bother with engineering because I was a skilled writer. I should use my talent and go into journalism. "By the way," she said, "UW-Madison is great for that. And they're in state but far enough away that you wouldn't have to see your parents all the time." So I thought, "Yeah! Journalism! This is what I want to do!"
Out of everything, I was most involved with FIRST. Thus, my team leaders had the most influence over me. I applied to Michigan Tech (as a mechanical engineering student) and was accepted. Unfortunately, my GPA wasn't high enough to receive in-state tuition, so I went to a community college for a year to take some gen. ed. courses. After one semester of that, MTU contacted me and said I would receive in-state tuition if I pulled off a 3.00 GPA at the community college. I did. During my time at the CC, I realized that while I think engineering is really cool, and I love science, I'm just not good at math. I don't understand it - it just doesn't make sense. How could I be an engineer, if I couldn't get through Calc I?
So before I even got to MTU, I changed my major to Scientific and Technical Communications. Kinda like journalism, but not really. I took some courses relevant to that my second college semester and realized, "Wow. The job I get in this field after college is going to land me at a desk, wearing business suits and nylons all the time. I don't want to do this!"
During the summer, I volunteered at a placed called "Wildlife in Need Center". It was great - I got to help rehabilitate wildlife that had been injured. It was the most inspired I'd felt in a long time, and MTU just picked up a new major called Wildlife Ecology & Management. It sounded like what I wanted to do so, I changed my major. Again.
After two semesters of these classes, I've again realized that this isn't want I want to do. Frankly, I find Forestry boring and the majority of classes I'm taking are forestry-related - not wildlife related like I thought. I realized if I continued down this path I wasn't going to be happy. I thought long and hard (and didn't talk to anyone!) before I decided what
I really wanted to do. Not what my mentors wanted me to do. Not what my boss wanted me to do. What I wanted to do. And I figured it out, about the 5th week of the build this year.
I want to teach. And FIRST (being a mentor on a team) has inspired me to do so. But I'm not going to teach math or science - it will be either English Education or Elementary Education (with a concentration in English). Isn't that funny? FIRST has inspired me to teach English.
In the meantime, though, I've "wasted" about $30,000 in classes I mostly didn't need to take. While this has been a great lesson, it was a costly one.
So (if you've made it this far, congratulations!) make sure you're going to school for something *you* want to do, and for something *you* will want to do for the rest of your life.
Good luck!
