A frustration and hatred for engineering started to develop in me while I was a student. I couldn’t understand why engineering was being taught in a way that was so boring, dry and complex. Engineering required more attention than just putting people in a massive lecture hall and throw equations, rules and principles at students and expect them to remember them. So many things that were not engineering were shoved down our throats. So much information: so little creativity. So many formulas: so little imagination. Engineering was stifling. There was no room for creativity and imagination. Our minds were forced to think one way. We couldn’t think outside the box, because we were trying so hard to put our minds in this box called engineering; that consisted of formulas and equations that ruled our lives. We did not have time to imagine, it was considered a waste. Imagining, dreaming and envisioning weren’t going to help us learn the materials and concepts required to get the grades needed to pass a class. We had to work ourselves like machines and robots, which just digest information and spit it out when needed. We weren’t able to be human beings that reasoned, dreamed, imagined, created or envisioned. The desire in us to do those things were stifled and killed off. We became numb to those desires burning in our hearts. So many of us enter engineering thinking we will finally give birth to the desires to create and innovate.
I would sit in class dreaming of all the things I would love to do with engineering. The communities and people that would benefit from advances in technology; engineering at its finest. I imagined and envisioned so many inventions that would redefine and shape the world like never before. But something happened along the way. I stopped dreaming. I no longer used my imagination; it was not free to explore the unlimited possibilities. There was no longer a vision that I was looking towards. I had lost hope, passion and love for engineering. I grew cold in my heart towards it. The thought of engineering was despised. I rejected the thought of being involved with it in the future. It became a bitter and sour taste in my mouth. It was a dry and dead experience. I wanted out of it. I wanted to switch out almost every semester to something different. I wanted something that had life. I needed something that was anything but engineering. At the time I didn’t know what was really happening in me or what it was that I needed.
I needed to be free to create, to imagine, to envision and to dream. As much as I tried to get out, I felt something pulling me towards it. I hated the feeling of not being able to leave, I wanted to leave but deep in my heart I couldn’t. There was a pulling, a war happening inside of me. The pain of being in engineering was too much, but getting to the point of leaving it completely, couldn’t and wouldn’t happen. So I stay semester after semester. I fought through the pain, the heart aches, the bitterness and frustration. I endured the stressful and discouraging nights. I persevere through the long days of dry lectures and endless homework and assignments. The mindless forcing of information into my mind and the struggle to keep it in me until needed was a daily struggle.
But there was a joy that happened May 15, 2009, when I graduated with a degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering. It was one the most beautiful experiences. A dream fulfilled after five years of endless fighting and hoping. The joy that filled my heart was overwhelming. Two thoughts filled my mind, “Yes I have accomplished the goal of getting an engineering degree, I finally made it, all the hard work paid off”, and second “Yes I am officially done with engineering, after today engineering is out of my life. I am free to do something else and to move on. No longer haunted by you.” Of course I didn’t realize all these things at the time. But now I can look back and see what was going through me. I was excited to accomplish this amazing goal and that I can finally leave engineering behind.
After a year and a half of graduating, something amazing has been happening. A passion and desire for engineering is starting to be revived. I have begun to dream again, letting my imaginations run while; I have been envisioning the endless possibilities of engineering and the world. A desire and passion to create is burning furiously in me. I’m beginning to love again. I have come alive. I have been set free. There is freedom in my heart. A releasing of bitterness and hatred and frustration has been evidence of healing to my heart. I have begun to forgive engineering. I am starting to realize that engineering was wrongly portrayed and taught. Engineering was not it’s true self. It was missing something; creativity. The very things that I needed, engineering was the essence of it. All this time engineering was creativity, dreaming, imagination and envisioning. Engineering are all these things. But what happened? Engineering was the victim, not the victimizer. Engineering was in prison, it was in bondage to the limited minds of people. It was put into a box of formulas and principles. It was restricted to lecture halls and textbooks. It was confined into lab procedures that tried to imitate creativity but was nothing but a counterfeit. As a result, many have hated and rejected engineering. Many have stuck with it without love for it. Many have used it just for the status and prestige and money that it offers without a true passion and desire for it. Many have continued in it in hope that it will one day change.
My hearts cry to all engineering students, past, present and future; don’t give up on engineering. Those desires and things you have dreamed about it is true. Those passions are real. Dream, imagine, envision and create. Allow all the bitterness and hatred be released from your heart that you may love again.
Engineering I forgive you and I am sorry. Engineering I love you.
