/sci/ - Science & Math

When I was reading a philosophy book and encountered Gödel's stuff. I happened to be reading Logicomix at the same time, so I realized I want to be a mathemagician like the guys in that story.

/sci/,

Why do so many people want to become engineers? I don't understand. A lot of the kids in my classes are trying to become engineers, and to be frank, not many of them are very intelligible or intuitive. They want to be spoon-fed everything and want to memorize billions of integrals and formulas instead of just understanding the concept.

In my Calc 3 class, most of the kids (about 90%—this is a rough estimate) want to become engineers, and only about 30% of the people in the class have grades higher than a C. They all want to become engineers even though they can't handle a simple calculus class that doesn't even delve into the in-depth stuff like analysis does.

In my mechanics class, a lot of the kids dropped because they found the material too difficult, and a lot of them are in Calc 2 and 3. Mind you, this is an introductory course—the first of AP Physics C courses that a lot of kids take in high school. I didn't get the chance to take it in high school since my school didn't offer it, but the material is still a piece of cake, and since these students have been exposed to more calculus than your average high school students, I can honestly say that I'm surprised to see that they struggle with this material.

So why is it that these kids try to become engineers? Is it the money? Do they really think it's easy? One of my friend's classmates has taken the same introductory chemistry course three times (the equivalent of AP Chemistry in high school), yet he still wants to become a chemical engineer.