Why I Am Still an Engineer
My LinkedIn notification tells me X, a college classmate of mine, is now the CEO of some company in the Silicon Valley. "Say congratulations," it says. But I don't, because this is not his first CEO job, and frankly, we've lost touch and I have no idea what this career change is about. But it does get me thinking about all my college classmates and where they are at. Y is the president of some international company. He posts pictures of his frequent business trips and company galas and golf socials with other VIPs. Come to think of it, many of my college classmates have gone on to become high-ranking officers in this tech company or that.
Ironically (or not so ironically?) these successful individuals were not the most stellar students back in college. I was the one with the high GPA, graduating with honors and belonging to every engineering honor society on campus. On paper, you might say I was the "smartest" and nerdiest of them all.
So, do I begrudge my college buddies of their success while I am barely a few years into a second career? Not at all. They have worked and sacrificed for decades to come this far and I am happy for them. As for me? I am exactly where I need to be. It would be dishonest to say I don't look on the big titles behind their names with a smidgeon of wistfulness, but it's a choice I made long ago, and I still stand by it.
At one point in my life, I decided to throw in the towel and give up engineering altogether. It just wasn't what it was cracked up to be. I was stuck in a successful career doing what I hated. In hindsight, I now know why I wasn't happy: I wasn't doing engineering. I did not get to design or develop any product. I applied, facilitated, promoted, taught, managed. I was on the fast track to becoming a VIP of some sort, but I hated my job. I hated the politics, the phone calls, the endless negotiations with customers about requirements and deadlines. I was becoming more and more removed from making and creating things. This quiet dissatisfaction and mounting boredom then met the impetus: I became a mother.
There's a part of me that's always been somewhat nonconformist and idealistic. It goes something like this. If you are going to bring another human being into this world, then make it worthwhile. Pour all your heart and soul into it. Don't raise him (it turned out to be a 'him') with compromises. Don't raise him in a system that fosters conformity and mediocrity. No. It won't do. I don't want my son to be at the mercy of a day care, where each child gets his allocated number of minutes of cuddle each day. I don't want some uninspired, ill-qualified pedant, such as ones I had in secondary schools, teaching him science or math from a teacher's edition with answers in the back. So I quit my lucrative career in high tech and became a full-time, homeschooling mom.
Fast-forward many years. I've learned a thing or two about myself. First, although I'm pretty good at math and sciences and just about every subject I care to learn, I am not good at teaching them. Also, there are lots of great teachers out there, and the poor samples I encountered in my own life are not representative of the spectrum of educators at large. Secondly, I am an introvert and an engineer to the core, and that is what I need to be doing. So I went back to work, this time making sure I would be creating things.
In a recent performance review, my manager asked me what are my career aspirations, in other words, would I be interested in managing people in the future. I told him I'm happy being an individual contributor; I did not tell him I've tried the managing gig and hated it. "Think about it," he said, because managing is the easiest way to propel one to the next level in an organization. "Sure," I told him, and I meant it.
In the process of seeking success, sometimes you give up the things that make you happy and made you choose your career in the first place. None of my successful college buddies are still doing engineering. The EE/CS degree was just a stepping stone for bigger and better things. And that's okay because it's what they've always wanted. Someday, maybe when I turn seventy, I will finally know exactly what I want and then I will laugh at all the wasted uncertainties and regrets.
Some things I do know, even now. I don't regret having spent over a decade being a full-time mom to my children; it was a privilege and a precious gift. And the other thing is this: I love what I do for work. It's not earth-shaking, and it won't end up in the news, but it keeps me awake at night and gets me going in the morning. I spend hours, sometimes days, mulling over ways to solve a problem. And when the solution comes to light in its most succinct and elegant form, it is beautiful and exciting. And it makes me smile. That is why I'm still an engineer.
Ironically (or not so ironically?) these successful individuals were not the most stellar students back in college. I was the one with the high GPA, graduating with honors and belonging to every engineering honor society on campus. On paper, you might say I was the "smartest" and nerdiest of them all.
So, do I begrudge my college buddies of their success while I am barely a few years into a second career? Not at all. They have worked and sacrificed for decades to come this far and I am happy for them. As for me? I am exactly where I need to be. It would be dishonest to say I don't look on the big titles behind their names with a smidgeon of wistfulness, but it's a choice I made long ago, and I still stand by it.
At one point in my life, I decided to throw in the towel and give up engineering altogether. It just wasn't what it was cracked up to be. I was stuck in a successful career doing what I hated. In hindsight, I now know why I wasn't happy: I wasn't doing engineering. I did not get to design or develop any product. I applied, facilitated, promoted, taught, managed. I was on the fast track to becoming a VIP of some sort, but I hated my job. I hated the politics, the phone calls, the endless negotiations with customers about requirements and deadlines. I was becoming more and more removed from making and creating things. This quiet dissatisfaction and mounting boredom then met the impetus: I became a mother.
There's a part of me that's always been somewhat nonconformist and idealistic. It goes something like this. If you are going to bring another human being into this world, then make it worthwhile. Pour all your heart and soul into it. Don't raise him (it turned out to be a 'him') with compromises. Don't raise him in a system that fosters conformity and mediocrity. No. It won't do. I don't want my son to be at the mercy of a day care, where each child gets his allocated number of minutes of cuddle each day. I don't want some uninspired, ill-qualified pedant, such as ones I had in secondary schools, teaching him science or math from a teacher's edition with answers in the back. So I quit my lucrative career in high tech and became a full-time, homeschooling mom.
Fast-forward many years. I've learned a thing or two about myself. First, although I'm pretty good at math and sciences and just about every subject I care to learn, I am not good at teaching them. Also, there are lots of great teachers out there, and the poor samples I encountered in my own life are not representative of the spectrum of educators at large. Secondly, I am an introvert and an engineer to the core, and that is what I need to be doing. So I went back to work, this time making sure I would be creating things.
In a recent performance review, my manager asked me what are my career aspirations, in other words, would I be interested in managing people in the future. I told him I'm happy being an individual contributor; I did not tell him I've tried the managing gig and hated it. "Think about it," he said, because managing is the easiest way to propel one to the next level in an organization. "Sure," I told him, and I meant it.
In the process of seeking success, sometimes you give up the things that make you happy and made you choose your career in the first place. None of my successful college buddies are still doing engineering. The EE/CS degree was just a stepping stone for bigger and better things. And that's okay because it's what they've always wanted. Someday, maybe when I turn seventy, I will finally know exactly what I want and then I will laugh at all the wasted uncertainties and regrets.
Some things I do know, even now. I don't regret having spent over a decade being a full-time mom to my children; it was a privilege and a precious gift. And the other thing is this: I love what I do for work. It's not earth-shaking, and it won't end up in the news, but it keeps me awake at night and gets me going in the morning. I spend hours, sometimes days, mulling over ways to solve a problem. And when the solution comes to light in its most succinct and elegant form, it is beautiful and exciting. And it makes me smile. That is why I'm still an engineer.
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