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Do mechanical and chemical engineers have this much mental anguish over their professions?
by hanskuder 17y ago
Do mechanical and chemical engineers have this much mental anguish over their professions?
- sofal 17y agoI have often wondered that myself. It does seem like engineers have less angst about it because they have been trained since school to play by all the strict rules, standards, and best practices that have been drilled into them. It's possible that software development attracts more creative, nonconformist people than engineering because there is a much higher barrier for creativity and self-direction in engineering.
- dasil003 17y agosuccess, failure, performance and ability are all easier to measure in physical engineering disciplines than in software.
- sree_nair 17y agoAs far as I know, No. I think the reason is not beacause there are more bright people in Software (would love to think that though :)) but that they have less choices. How often do you hear a mechanical engineer leaving work to start a new company or doing a 'Mechanical' start up and selling to for big money?. I think when you have few options and when people you identify with are doing what you are doing, these feelings of not contributing/not doing anything else are less.
- imp 17y agoSort of, but engineering is more measurable. If you can reduce a component's defect rate, then the company will likely go with your new idea. If you can't reduce a defect rate, then you won't have any lingering feelings that your way would have been better. Engineers also tend not to have blogs to rant about this stuff, so if they do have anguish they don't publicize it. It's all kind of a generalization though, so YMMV.
- UncleOxidant 17y agoWait, you mean we're not engineers? (us Software Engineers, that is)
- imp 17y agoThe original article used the word developer, so I just used engineer to refer to the other type of profession. I wasn't trying to suggest anything, just being more concise while writing a comment.
- dgabriel 17y agoI know that doctors and nurses often do.
- flooha 17y agoIn my case, it was MUCH worse. I have a BSME and worked as a Product Engineer for 2 years at a spark plug company. I hated it so much, I worked like a dog to get into IT. (There really wasn't much of an IT program at my school when I started and computer engineering was basically mechanical engineering with a computer...sigh) Most engineering work, especially automotive, is extremely boring. I'm sure an M.E. at Nasa is considerably happier, but these types of jobs are extremely rare. Moving to IT was one the of all time best decisions of my life, but it wasn't easy to make the transition.