#2

When choosing my major it was pretty much a shot in the dark, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in life, but growing up I enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together and generally just working with my hands. So I decided to choose engineering as my major going into college. From there narrowing it down to mechanical engineering was completely random, I was completely unaware of the differences between the different disciplines within engineering (i.e. electrical engineering, civil engineering). Even now I don’t know if I chose the right engineering discipline because all of them start with the same GE and lower division classes so I haven’t gotten a good feel for what mechanical engineering truly is. Part of the reason I decided on Chico was because it was in the CSU system they don’t really specialize in any one specific major and because I wasn’t really sure about my major coming in I wanted options if I hated it. Now of course Chico has its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to majors but regardless it’s more balanced than then the vast majority of private schools. Believe it or not the other major I was considering was psychology this may seem odd considering its not nearly as active is engineering but in high school I took AP psych as an elective senior year (got a 5 on the AP test thanks for asking), and I absolutely loved the class but I think that it was largely in part to my teacher who made me love the subject. While ultimately I decided against it the concept of analyzing, diagnosing, and solving the puzzle with the given pieces was highly enticing to me. The reason I decided against it was purely that I didn’t want to have to talk to people. As an engineer you are given a problem and you on your own to find a solution. On the other hand with psychology the job requires active intimate communication which is something that I was actively trying to avoid. While both of these descriptions don’t do justice to either major/career it was at the time how I viewed each and I made my decision accordingly. I guess I’ll never really know if I would have made a good psychologist but, at least for now, I am happy with my decision to be a mechanical engineer. (403 words)