Many freshman level courses aren't very interesting. You're learning to lay the groundwork so you can efficiently do more interesting work later. The most impor

Many freshman level courses aren't very interesting. You're learning to lay the groundwork so you can efficiently do more interesting work later. The most important thing I took away from my engineering degree wasn't any specific knowledge, it was the problem solving method, break problems down, etc. I only have experience at two employers, but I say Yes, the big company was a pretty poor work experience. There were definitely people above me trying to make it better, but they were struggling against the slow-moving bureaucracy of government contracts. It's easy at a big company to get pigeon-holed because there are so many employees. If you start to stand out in one area everyone will come to you for answers in that area. At the smaller employer, I've had the opportunity to try on different hats and only pigeon-hole myself as much as I want to. It's more exciting and I've learned more that I ever would have at the big company.