i love thinking about what types of people go into which fields of engineering, and think stories about “how you got here” are really interesting!  so tell me… if you’re an engineer (or engineer to be) what made you choose your particular discipline?

me, I’m electrical.  In high school I loved physics but demand for physicists is a little narrow, so I tried out some engineering classes.  I loved electrical because it was mathematical and there were lots of patterns.  Very few weird rules to memorize… it’s not like chemistry, where there are weird exceptions to things here and there.  Electrons are electrons!  And this’ll sound stupidly girly but in electrical engineering I don’t have to deal much with anything requiring brute force or muscle… you don’t have to do pushups to get a resistor in a breadboard.  and it’s never messy!  I get to call up hydraulics and walk away if there’s something leaking on me.

electrical engineering is a fabulously pure science with beautiful things to think about (every weird signal is just made up of sine waves!) but there’s still high demand in the job market.  so I’d have to say that I since I choose it, I never doubted that I found my niche.

I did not start out as a nerd girl.  I hated math in high school and was generally not very good at it.  Everyone told me I was not the math and science type.  I was not technical.  I believed them.

I got a liberal arts degree in college, though I did take 2 Fortran classes.  Then I got a masters of arts in history.  No kidding.  But the only job I could get after that was as an elementary school librarian.  So back to school I went.

I had intended to get an MIS degree and just build on my liberal arts background but the admissions adviser talked me in to a computer science degree program.  She said they were all the same classes except a couple.  My first classes were C++ classes.  I went in dreading them but with a goal to just survive them.  I was not technical, remember?  But it turns out that I love (and I mean LOVE) to program.  I learned C++ really fasted and maxed out the points in every class.  Before long they had me teaching it (because I already had one masters degree).

As much as I loved the programming classes in school, it was nothing as fun as writing real code for real programs.  I love writing new code and I love fixing bugs and adding in new features to old code.  Each task has a slightly different challenge.

And now, I am mostly teaching.  I was laid off in 2003 and there have not been many programmer/software engineering jobs near where I live.  And I am back in school again for the PhD this time (because as Mr. Bush told us, all we really need is retraining).  I love teaching programming almost as much as I love programming.

I have always been “nerdy.” I come from a family full of engineers and science types. My mom’s first job was actually as a computer programmer.  She stopped working when my brother was born, but helped teach the BASIC programming section in the 7th grade keyboarding class in my school. I remember stealing her lessons plans for the class and going and programming on our old computer in the basement. I think I was 10 when I did this. But, I didn’t go to school to study computer science. I was originally a geology major because I never grew out of a childhood fascination with fossils. But, after a really unique internship at a museum, I switched to CS and Math and I haven’t looked back.

I went to graduate school after college, intending on getting a PhD, because I love teaching programming too! But… the research and publish/perish environment wasn’t good to me, so I left and now I’m working in the software industry and I couldn’t be happier! Ironically though, I do approximately zero programming in my day to day work.

I didn’t really choose my field as much as it has choosen me.

Like others who have already posted, I started out in college with a liberal arts - art history degree.  In the menatime, most of my friends were male computer geeks.  They taught me a lot through a series of rather hilarious pranks.  (For example, you learn where to set the sounds on your computer when you have to listen to a recording of “Banana In pajamas are coming down the stairs....”

I grew up on a computer, but it was mostly an extension for my art (Corel Draw from the age of 8) or writing (poetry and prose primarily).  I also began creating webpages and chatting online.  The chatting improved my ability to type like a demon on crack (and still primarily with three fingers).

In college I also fell in love with Ballroom Dancing. That, combined with an excellent speach communications teacher my freshman year, lead me to learn how to stand in front of large groups of people - male and female - and teach them to dance.  Most people are not that comfortable with dancing - as it means close connections to strangers and coordination that isn’t always easy without counting.

After a stint in an architecture program, I left planning to return to the webdesign workd.  Unfortunately, the dot.com crash hit and I was up a creek with ALOT of school debt.  So, I got an MBA in technology management and landed a job at the same time(after 15 hours of interviews including an html training lesson in front of the potential company) Through that job I began learning basic SQL and database managing.  I left that jopb after 4 years and then spent 6 months gaining on the job experience with the RUP development as a business analyst.  After my non-compete clause was relaxed, I returned to the ticketing industry where my first job was focused - as a consultant.

My new job gives me the flexibility to take on new technologies and go in many directions. This is very imporrtant to me, as otherwise I would get bored. :)

I always wanted to be an auto mechanic, but my father thought that computers where the wave of the future and pushed all of us kids into the computer field. I started out by going to a tech school and learning cobol programming. Couldn’t get a job, so I learned Fortran programming and computer operations - worked as an Operator on Mainframe computers for a long time. When PCs (yes the good old IBM 8088s, aka boat anchors) came into the place I was working I volunteered to learn to fix and maintain them - my skills just grew from there.

So I blame and bless my father for putting me in this field, but he knew something and since I can’t be an auto mechanic - I think of myself as a computer mechanic.

:D

PsyscoGirl

I have always been a nerd, though my nerd specialty switched from literature to math around seventh grade when a very special teacher discovered I was actually better at the latter subject.  My math skills up to that point had always been considered lacking, so sometimes I think that’s all it takes—for one teacher to say “hey, you can do this”....turns out I just needed a little boost of confidence to set me on the science/math track.
I exhausted every math class offered at my high school by my junior year, then went on to major in physics at college. I ultimately chose to pursue graduate studies in Mechanical Engineering, largely because I wanted to do something more applied and have always been fascinated by space (rockets FTW!).

If you met me after high school,
you never would have thought I’d be an electrical engineer one day.

When I finally got to the lower-division physics course titled… electromagnetics..

I fell in love… It felt as though I was learning something, I already knew but did not know in terms of equations.

I had no idea what my major should be in college… my dad said to me “You really like math and chemistry… you should try chemical engineering.” So I did. Once we got into the actual ChemE coursework I realized that I really liked it, but that none of the jobs my professors were talking about sounded at all interesting to me. I tried a couple of summers of research and found my niche :)

Well, I’m Dominican Republica of where technology does not develop almost anything, and so are of limited engenierias being taught here.

My papa is electromechanical engineer, and a lifetime make them taste many projects and invent things, and although I am the only woman in my house, always was the only one who was willing to help.

When I was in my last year of high school really was sure that my area was the engineering. All my friends gave me their things for me was the arranger, and I liked all areas. NON-wise by which it decided.

All this until the government opened a technology park where he began to implement various technical courses, which subsequently became something more serious to technical careers. Within these carrers is the engineering mechatronics. One of my friends told me about it and immediately began investigating on it.

I loved it, since the first time that i read about it. It was such like me. Robotics, assemble, manufacture, Process automation. I haven’t finished yet, but this is definitely for me.