Sorry for the delay...

I guess at this point people aren't expecting daily updates, anyway.

Slashdot | Why Students Are Leaving Engineering

So I saw the above article last night/this morning. I thought it was an interesting article, and I have a few comments regarding the subject:
I know engineering is a well-paying profession, as a whole. Some might argue it's still not in proportion to the stress, but that's highly dependent on where an engineer works; My fellow engineers at my job this past summer were busy, sometimes, but certainly weren't stressed out of their minds. I could see an engineer at a larger company with stricter deadlines and further removed management being much more stressed, though. I have noticed, though this may be more as a result of the particulars of my home town, that the 'prestigious' career paths were medicine or law, and perhaps politics by way of law school. There were certainly many times as many people in my graduating class who claim they're going to be doctors or lawyers as who say they're going to be some kind of engineer. For whatever reason, it seemed like the general idea was, if you're good at math/science you should be a doctor; if you're more words/history/etc oriented, you should end up in law/business school. Do I really mind this attitude? Eh, not really. This helps weed out all the people who'd be in just for the money, but it could discourage someone who could be a good engineer or a good anything, from becoming an engineer, and America is certainly in need of good engineers for our future.
If I may digress, momentarily, to ran about the attitudes at my high school:
Most people didn't really give a care at all. Seriously. Even people, in some ways especially, the people in Honors/AP classes. Non/under achievers didn't care about grades or the material, and whatever, I generally didn't have to deal with those people in class. However, I did have to repeatedly/continuously deal with the (over)achievers in my classes. As a rule, they couldn't care less whether they ever learned anything at all. Ever. As long as they got their A or B, enough to get into their Ivy (or "Near Ivy") League school. It's not like they're feeling out their interests or strengths or anything like that. I took the classes I did (in HS) largely because I wanted to take the class, not because I felt like it would look good on my transcript/whatever. That's why I took both Chem and Physics Jr and Sr years, not because I knew that would help me get into the school of my choice, but because I like science and I wanted to learn more about them. Same with APUS (granted I had to take some US history course) and doubly so with my various humanities courses Sr year ("The American Presidency", "Economics" and "Modern Latin America & Africa" (though I do think Smolcha is an excellent teacher and that was a significant part of why I took that class)). So now, people who didn't give a care in HS, what are you doing now? Picking courses at random/Partying, trying to graduate within 4 years? Working hard so you can transfer to a 'better' school? (Seriously, there was a whole philosophy among some people in my HS that they would apply to less competitive schools knowing that they'd transfer after a semester or year) I have trouble believing that, within certain groups/classifications, one college is any better than another one. I mean, it's entirely possible to be not-too-bright, get into and graduate from an Ivy League school and not really have any clue what's going on for the rest of your life. Alternately, it's entirely possible to go to a 'bad' (read "Less Competitive) school and then go on to do something worthwhile or otherwise notable. It's all about the attitude. The name on the degree isn't going to make you learn things. (none of this was meant to criticize people who are currently undecided. There's a difference between having varied/broad interests and just not caring about what you do) /rant
Back to the issue at hand....
I've said and I'll say it again: Engineering is as much a career as it is a personality type. I'm not saying that all engineers are the same person, but I'd like to think that 'good' engineers share some common traits: passion for learning, curiosity about how the world works and a drive to make things work better. I've noticed that it's generally people who don't share any of these traits that are just 'in it for the money'. So far I haven't found the work unbearable or anything, and I've been reasonably engaged in most/all of my classes. True my own "Smartypants U" has actual profs teach all of the real courses (the only exceptions being the freshman writing class as well as the utterly useless 'computing skills workshop' and the StuCo (student tought) classes). Granted, in one case, it would have been a enormous improvement if the TA's had tought class instead of the Prof *coughhowiechosetcough*. He was practically a guest lecturer anyway.
I've discovered this strange phenomenon and I'm testing it out for a while. If you sit near the front of the lecture hall of 100+ people, it's pretty easy to feel like you're in a class of more like, 20-30. That's what I'm doing in all my MechE classes (126 people) and my calc class (at least 150). It's pretty nice. Yea, I know it's not exactly the same, but if at any moment it seems like that to me, then I'll be more likely to pay attention and answer a question rather than just sitting there and hoping to master the material.
My point in all of this is as follows: As with any discipline, it's as hard as you make it on yourself, to a degree. If you try hard and make the point of getting together with people to work on problem sets/study for tests and go to prof's office hours and whatnot it's certainly doable.