Hello
This question is really for engineers or former engineers who switched to the medical route. So, I am currently a senior, pre-dental, considering switching TO engineering. I was just curious, for the engineers, what made you switch from engineering to medicine? And are you happy with your choice?
Paskim, get thee to a career counselor.
Yeah, I'm happy with my decision. But...Once an engineer - always an engineer. When did you start thinking about engineering? I have four brothers who are all engineers. I can't ever recall ANY of us ever sitting down and talking about or second-guessing our decisions to go into engineering. It was more of a fact. Note that my parents are NOT engineers and they didn't try an influence any of our decisions. I only applied to MIT and UMich college of Engineering when I was in high school. I just knew from the get-go that's what I was going to do. Mind you, my brothers and I are not the same at all. We don't really get along and we are all different kinds of engineers - BUT we are all still doing engineering (save possibly me currently in medical school until my research year begins).
I will continue to use engineering throughout my career (as a physician investigator). There is a Dilbert cartoon about "The Knack" - how people are born engineers. I think it is funny mostly because there is a hint of truth to it. If you are attracted to engineering, there's nothing wrong with going for it. However, I caution you that people who go into engineering (or medicine) for the wrong reasons end up in management/marketing/sales/etc. quickly - not that there is anything wrong with that.
I would suggest you get an internship in engineering or a part-time job to see if this is what you want to do. I know it's kind of late in the game - but better check out the water and possibly waste a semester before you dive-in head-first.
As for me - I'm good at what I do, engineering wise. Some would say great. I've done R&D my entire career - I have the patents and publications, awards and successful projects/products to prove it.
I left for two reasons - First, mainly because I wanted to advance in along a technical, non-managerial pathway - but a PhD was not for me. Why? Because I'm much more social and collaborative than many of my peers were. For example, I was once told "why can't you just stay in your office like Rick does?" by my PhD/CEO. Well - my "socialization" with other subject-matter experts and the marketing guys resulted in several concrete new product ideas and an international patent pending. When discussing going back to school, my office-mates (with PhDs) urged me not to go get a PhD - which at the time seemed surprising. But they knew me better than I did. I'm a people person, in short, and I would have been miserable in a PhD program.
Second, engineering is not as secure as it once was. While not as important as my first reason, it is a cold hard fact engineering isn't as secure as it once was. Yes - engineering is tough and rigorous training. And much like medicine, you really learn on-the-job after the first, say, 5 years, of school. I found this to be very rewarding intellectually. But I feel like in the current employment climate there is a mentality that engineers can be treated like a commodity - a resource that can be laid-off when there is excess or hired only when needed. What is appealing about medicine is my assessment that MDs in particular can "write their own tickets" and this is not such an issue.
Sorry for the rambling, long-winded response. Hope that makes sense.
