I Spent 5 Years in Engineering School to Become a Writer
Hey Steemit! This is me, and the story of how I spent 5 years busting my butt in engineering school to become a writer.
I'm the guy on the right, and on the left is my amazingly gorgeous wife. We're high school sweethearts and we just had out first daughter, Ellia. While I may look much younger, I'm 22, living in my native state of Texas and finishing up my studies as a civil engineering student. While I do that, I am also working as the Editor of Interesting Engineering pursuing my dream of digital media and content creation.
This is our daughter. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything more adorable in the world.
Anyway, now on to why you're here, the whole "getting an engineering degree just to become a writer" thing.
Well, going into college I knew I wanted to get into engineering to learn how things work and how to construct things. My degree is in civil engineering, which is basically structures and water systems. Ask me about how your poop gets from your toilet and turned into drinking water again, I dare you. That's what I do, and surprisingly, I love learning about it.
However, before I decided to get into engineering, I almost decided to go to school and be an art major. Talk about a complete 180˚ flip. While I ended up going into engineering, I have an intense creative side of me that sat untouched for most of my years in college. Finally, this last year, I decided to do something about it and get into writing, content creation, and internet media. The only problem was, I had absolutely no idea where to get started.
You see, my engineering degree taught me a lot more about adapting, creating, and hard work than it ever did about the technical processes of soil erosion (another facet of civil engineering). I decided that if I wanted to get into writing and content creation, I guess asking someone would be the first step. So I sent off a grand total of one email to the company I now call my employer. I got a response, and I started in the industry a few days later. A lot of people are really confused when I say that I am trained as an engineer and now I work in the writing and creative fields.
I'd argue, though, that nothing prepared me more for a career in writing than my engineering degree did.
Sure it cost me a lot of sleepless nights trying learn calculus or figure out how to take that derivative for a test, but knowing how to do that only prepared me more to spend countless hours researching and learning about topics I write about.
So do I regret investing my life into a grueling engineering degree just to be a writer?
Trevor, I too went to engineering school and now am in a seeming unrelated field. I am a Real Estate Broker and spend most of my time on marketing, writing, and talking to people. Not things most engineers are known for, but I tend to agree with you. Nothing could have prepared me better for whatever I had chosen to do than the struggles of engineering school.
Definitely. While I will probably rarely use the math and science I learned, the skills outside of education are proving to be invaluable to me.
Welcome onboard! I was in engineering as well. Ended up doing all sorts of stuff from writing to music and building brands! One good thing about going through engineering is the ability to gobble up manuals :D Enjoy your stay here!
Thanks! Glad to see that other engineers are branching out as well ;)
well doing engineering makes you more creative and versatile that's what i have learned throughout my engineering .
Yep, if anything trudging through engineering only enhances whatever creative skills you already have.
I studied engineering as well and found the same awesome benefits to the engineering mindset in all of my side projects. I apply it mostly to writing structure. It's easier to read the manual when you follow natural design. I now still do engineering-related things, but not in an engineering field. I still haven't found anything more challenging than signals processing and complex diff equs.
Oh, don't remind me of Diff Eq.