Help

Bafucin

I may as well ask here I have asked everyone else.
I am supposed to be completing a PHD and I have deferred until I am better financed and am considering dropping out completely to be honest. I did not pass means testing for grants. I already have student and personal loans. I don't know if I am cut out for my field nor if it is something I like (it isn't). I have found trying to work and study pretty much means you will not finish. I am left with a Bachelor's degree and a M.Eng. What I am studying I can do but it is nowhere near to who I am and I will be honest and say I find it very academically taxing. I can do it but it's a slog.

The loans are a sunk cost. I am not getting that money back, and I certainly can't make good use of them if I force myself to continue on and make myself miserable and fail.

I was very gung-ho awhile ago and had undertaken what most of my peers consider insane course loads as a result I had completed 3 terms of Mech. Eng. in 2.I think I HATE engineering now. I have seen the work load a few years ahead and the fact that it involves studying abroad for me next year/this oncoming academic year and I am second thinking.I was thinking of making a switch to pure and applied math and/or statistics thinking I could get a secure job using both but I also went to shadow a couple of engineers and concluded that they use VERY LITTLE of the math that they studied.I feel broke, burnt out and my head is ready to space big time. This isn't one of those "boo-hoo I'm failing posts". Mindlessly "applied formula", a mechanical subject I dislike , stress, my own temperament, lack of creativity,financial strife and all for a degree that will get past HR's suspicions that I should not work for them (they are correct) into more of the same.

You can spot an Engineer usually, by the way they talk, what they are interested in and the things they do as hobbies. I am NOT that person. Coming up with a formula to solve some problem is NOT something I like to do or want to do. I know within myself that this is self inflicted. I had a terrible background to do Engineering. I hate being an Engineer and I feel like a stupid one too. I can definitely not compare to the Engineering kid next to me who sits and talk about aerodynamics etc.

If you are debt free get the cash together first for any course. I did it arseways. I also had a previous degree (music) which i did not finish, which I had to pay partly for.

I would love to do audio engineering or something with music/music production. That was the first degree i didn't finish (music) life went a different way. Bad move If you don't like something you will not stick at it.Its obvious you hate your subject when you look forward to a root canal to get out of it.

If you currently have no student debt consider yourself lucky. I want a lower paying job that I like. But I'm in debt and the thing I would like is hard to get into and even with talent I will always struggle. Also I suspect I am exhausted.

If I proceed I will have to go and study abroad next year. I am worried how it will take it's toll on me in a strange place with no friends or familiarity for support. I think I'll crack.

Thank you.

Lou.m

I think you are very brave for posting this.

Look at it this way you have come so far and achieved a lot. Feel good about that. Choose whatever you need to for you to be happy.

It is possible you could defer for a year next year maybe and take a break. Perhaps if you had that in your head it might help. Or you could not continue and take a job. Or try to find a better life work balance.

You feel your peers find it easier I don't think that is true. And anyway it says a lot that you have continued then.

I think you are very hard on yourself.

Everyone will support you whatever you feel you should do. :-)

Obliq

I'd like to say congratulations on the Bachelor's degree and a M.Eng, that's a huge achievement, but it doesn't mean you can't change your mind about what you want to do. Anything like that that you achieve will stand to you in future, whether you decide to turn yourself around and go for a completely different area of study or take a year out like the poster above suggests. You sound like your head is a bit wrecked and it's hardly surprising given that you've slogged so hard to get where you are.

You are definitely entitled a break to think things through....plus, you seem to want to do something creative but in a different area to engineering. Let yourself. You already regret giving up music, so take it up again eh? Somewhere down the road you will probably find that your engineering knowhow will be hugely helpful even in that area. All the best OP.

Rubberchikken

Could you just let college go for a bit and concentrate on getting to a healthy place- mentally and financially?

Pursuing something that you don't/won't like is, imo, totally pointless.
Take care

Bafucin

Hi I couldn't remember whether I had posted this anon or not. Anyway.

Just to explain I posted about this on FB a few weeks ago. I wanted to get the perspective of people who have known me a while. I have also spoken to my family and close friends. The general consensus is 'get on with it'. People have kind of seen me drift in and out of courses and jobs in my twenties and I stopped that pattern seven years ago. Before then those years were the least productive of my life. I have little to show for them.

I have decided to to go ahead with it. It's two more years. I could deffer the year after rather than now and have a plan for doing so. The thought that I HAVE the option to defer the next year makes this year easier. I loved engineering in the first year of my Bachelors and hated the second and third year and found it again the last year. I think it's never seeing the end of it. When the end is in sight it feels different. You aren’t confined to any man-made rules: if there is a problem then engineers can come up with a solution. It is a professional that will give me perhaps opportunities to travel even with the debt I have accumulated. Which getting visas with might be difficult otherwise. I hate that the Irish doctoral system is so bloody wasteful of time though.

I have to look at money though. I can move in with my parents and they agreed not to take rent while I studied.

The way I am looking at it is this. I can quite anytime. I can't do a PHD degree at the drop of a hat. I could quit next year or the year after (which would be pointless at that stage so far in).

Starting salary for Mech Engineers in Ireland is about €30,000.In the states it's around twice that. It's peanuts in this country compared to others. But I could clear my debts in 3/5 yrs. It's going to take that long anyway. In Ireland most small Irish companies are supported financially by a government department called Enterprise Ireland. When you sign up with them you no longer run your own company. In order to get the grant money required to start the business you have to do what they tell you. As a result wages are as low as you can make them. Someone will apply for the job. That someone is who keeps engineering wages at their present levels. This sets the lower limit seen in Ireland. I never knew that when I started.
In the multinationals things are very different. A company that is expanding and building plants in different countries generally isnt dependant on government grants to run their business. They take whatever grants are available but now they are not dependant on them to survive. But Engineering is a portable degree i don't have to stay here.

I have no guarantee of a job if I complete it, but I have less guarantee if I quit.

A few people pointed out that studying abroad for a few months might actually help ( a change is as good as a rest).

I could change my mind next week. But For now that's my thinking.