IS ENGINEERING YOUR DREAM OR YOUR PARENT’S DREAM?
Many a times its our parents dream. Its because either our parents themselves couldn’t become engineers or they became very successful engineers. I am not allowed to do what I want to do. My wife wanted to become a vet, she had to compromise on Ayurvedic Medicine. I meet so many students on campus who wanted to pursue their Aeronautical career but their parents wanted them to be Software or Electronics Engineers. I have many friends who expose their children to something like music or dance because they could not do it. There are parents where the child is 3yrs of age but they are clear about her future. She HAS to go to CBSE School and she SHOULD be an IAS officer. I couldn’t become one so I want her to become IAS. Her life will be SET once she is IAS.

I feel that these thoughts (what your parents want you to become) root from our own limitations and a wrong concept of ‘goal setting for others’. That is the wall that parents have built around themselves and around you students since your childhood. Now that you can think for yourself even then we continue to raise the width and height of those walls around us (both parents and students do that). Financial security has killed our natural instincts to grow. “I want to get my daughter married to …and hence she should be an Engineer.” “My value in dowry market will begin with 25L as an engineer. From 5th sem my would-be father-in-law is going to pay the fees ;)” Anything is possible here. So, there are some parents who are sure about their wards' career and there are some students who are clear about their career (what marks they get and how many compromises they do is a different story altogether). There is another set of students who don’t know what future is like. Engineering just happens to them.

All in all it will be a curve of students who are ‘not at all clear’ to students who are ‘completely clear’ about their future. Other level of influence will be from surroundings like parents, friends and relatives who will be ‘not at all clear’ to ‘completely clear’ about this individual. These 2 forces will decide what s/he does in the future. With such a state of mind a lot of students join engineering colleges.

There are many students who come to me and say ‘Sir, I cannot concentrate on my studies.’ After slowly getting into their thought process, in many cases, I’ve found they are doing engineering because somebody else wants them to be an engineer, not them. They wanted to be pilot or something else, as mentioned earlier. Till you don’t make up your mind that becoming an engineer is not my decision all these ‘concentration’ and ‘hormone-hijacking-your-timetable’ will keep happening. Align your goals. If you want to go to aeronautics, see what a job-description of an aeronautical software engineer is, see what research is happening in aeronautical software engineering. Become hungry then only can you eat. Colleges are busy feeding you with the information, the real need is to make you hungry. Then you will eat food yourself.

Now, if you are already into engineering then give all your energy to it and get your swiss-knife ready. Engineering is like a swiss-knife with as many subjects for engineering that many tools in the knife. Hone really well as many subjects as you like and the rest atleast get them ‘back’ of you. You don’t stay ‘back’, do whatever it takes. Master ONE subject out of so many that you read. Drill into the depth of one subject, just one. The world is an ocean and you will find a big horizon opening up for you for one subject that you loved, a place only for you if you are loving what you do and doing what you love.

Hope you have done well for your VTU exam papers that you appeared till now! All the best for your remaining papers!