>I wanted badly to be a pilot as a youngster, but after reading this, and looking at what I do now, I wonder if I should've been wanting to be a Flight Engineer

>I wanted badly to be a pilot as a youngster, but after reading this, and looking at what I do now, I wonder if I should've been wanting to be a Flight Engineer! Considering their entire profession has been completely obsolete for 20 years, I should think not. The modern real-life version of Scotty or Geordi is being a US Navy nuclear reactor technician. But instead of warping around the galaxy on a beautiful starship, occasionally fighting Klingons or Romulans (or worse, Gorn) but most of the time exploring strange new worlds, meeting new sentient alien races and establishing peaceful relations with them, and enjoying tasty food from the replicators and watching Shakespearean plays or violin concertos by your highly-educated crewmates, life in any modern-day navy is nothing like this.