"C" is the new "F"

Current Mood: epic
Current Music: "Fury Of The Storm" by Dragonforce

I spent three weeks over winter break in anguish and self induced agony. Pessimistic like never before, and with hard numbers to back it up, I had calculated that despite my best efforts my average grades over last semester were not good enough. Defeated, it was all I could do to wonder what I would do with myself, having missed the cutoff to get into aero by mere tenths of a EAI point.

I talked long and hard with my closest friends, some of my old teachers, wondering what I could do instead. Not only was I losing my spot near the top of the Purdue major hierarchy, but I was even slipping within the engineering. I scrambled for something to switch to, given that I hate chemistry and most other engineering majors are harder to get into. Somehow I got a lot of feedback about how I'm more of a fluid people person than a calculus robot, much to my confusion. When I first got to school, there was no doubt in my mind that this was exactly what I wanted to do. Now I was looking for a backup, and apparently people think I'm talkative, good at writing, and speaking, etc., and I should consider Industrial Engineering, IE. This is a broader spectrum of engineering, more about management and systems, rather than focusing on rockets and propulsion. Given the circumstances, it seemed like the best fit.

What if I had made the cutoff? It would only have been by a few points. Aero isn't going to get much easier from here to graduation, and I need a pretty good finish to land a job. Sure, as Scott and others have mentioned, a Purdue degree carries a lot of weight and that your final GPA isn't as important, but still. Job competition is fierce and aero is a difficult field filled with lots of jobs that are amazing, and few for those at the bottom, but overall a very unstable job market. My only A's here at college so far were in english and communications, as well as my one computer graphics & technology course. I've often joked that I'm the least *engineer* engineer I know. Calculus, coding, and chemistry seem to be only passed through sheer force of will sometimes, when I can only wonder how some of my colleagues managed to read or write through high school.

Had I misjudged myself? Was I blinded by idealism and naive visions of my boyhood heroes? Space Camp in 5th grade was certainly a long ways away. Back then, I'd believed so fiercely in notions of the wild blue yonder and the Right Stuff, and even at such a young age, I'd planted that flag, the symbol, that magical phrase "aeronautical engineering" deep into the future. It became a beacon, a rallying point whenever things got difficult. When life stormed around me and I grew up, I kept my eyes on the prize. Career searches and college hunts growing up meant nothing to me- only that major. When my classes got harder, I wanted it more, and I was willing to put in the time and effort when others wanted to go party. College was this erudite place of learning where all my awkwardness would disappear and my life would fall magically into place as I followed Neil's footsteps (okay, conceding a bit- with the GIANT exception of academics, my life has fallen in amazingly at college. But I'm not paying 30k a year out of state to feel this way). Even when my parents started fighting, I looked ahead. With my Purdue acceptance letter in hand, it didn't even matter that I was going to have surgery. Long hours I lay in the hospital, vowing to do whatever it took to get to that moment where I would be accepted as an intellectual, a pioneer- an engineer. Something that I thought would irrevocably place me on an upward bound trajectory towards being this "star voyager" that I'd dreamed about all of my life, that I wanted more than anything.

And here it was, a slap in the face. Sorry, but even retaking calc II, you're just not good enough. Start looking down, Ryan. Your eyesight isn't very good, you've got metal poles bolted to your spine, and now you're not smart enough, either.

I wanted to cry. It felt like all my work, all the risks, all was lost.

I'd made it into engineering here at Purdue. I was beginning to think that I'd sneaked by somehow. Eager for my out of state dollars, Purdue accepted my application with a laugh and dollar signs in their eyes. Besides, it's not like I was doing very well. My average grades placed me firmly in the middle of the engineering program, and it really doesn't matter how eloquent or enthusiastic you are when your grades just don't cut it.

I listened with everything I had left to anybody who I could talk to about it. My parents were still proud of me, they said (apart from each other when I spent time with them separately, seeing as how they're fucking divorced now), but it still felt like I was a failure. To them and myself. My friends didn't really care if I switched, and some were worried about my health, the stress, the anguish I was putting myself through. I wondered if I should try IE, switch to a science major, try something completely off the wall. Should I transfer to OSU like Andy Fedus, and be with Eric and David? Would that make things better? There is so much stress and petty worry over being "the aero" to all my friends, but knowing that I was on the line, one grade letter away from getting in. Maybe they were right. Perhaps that it was silly of me to assume that I could stay the same from fifth grade with this storybook image, this notion that everything was the same no matter what.

No, there are ugly shades of grey, now. I'm far away from home and nobody tells me what classes to take, how to study and what to learn. My parents have things to worry about, like the dogs escaping or fighting over who has who's computer or who will take care of Bradley. Who was I to ask for them to look at my engineering reports, a dozen pages of calculations and diagrams I'd calculated in MATLAB or modeled in CATIA. I can't ask my father about converging series. My mother won't talk to me about flux through a solenoid. Hell, I was grateful to avoid talking about my dad's new ladyfriend.

http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/astronauts/

Notes on Academic Requirements:

Applicants for the Astronaut Candidate Program must meet the basic education requirements for NASA engineering and scientific positions - specifically: successful completion of standard professional curriculum in an accredited college or university leading to at least a bachelor's degree with major study in an appropriate field of engineering, biological science, physical science, or mathematics. The following degree fields, while related to engineering and the sciences, are not considered qualifying:

* Degrees in Technology (Engineering Technology, Aviation Technology, Medical Technology, etc.)
* Degrees in Psychology (except for Clinical Psychology, Physiological Psychology, or Experimental Psychology which are qualifying).
* Degrees in Nursing.
* Degrees in Exercise Physiology or similar fields
* Degrees in Social Sciences (Geography, Anthropology, Archaeology, etc.).
* Degrees in Aviation, Aviation Management, or similar fields.

I was down, but not out. I want to be a Boilermaker. I want to be an engineer and they hadn't kicked me out of Freshman Engineering yet. My parents have their own lives and as much as I love them and respect them, as crucial to my childhood and as supportive as they were in years past, they've got their own lives to sort out. I may look like him, but I am not my father. It was time to start figuring some things out on my own. I knew in my heart that I want to be in college, I love being here in this crucible of a school...I want the respect and the honor and pride of finishing my degree here because I'd worked my ass off to get here in the first place. I wanted to learn and pass through thermodynamics like my friends and the heroes I'd looked up to.

It's not as if my dream had changed- perhaps the path might, though.

Industrial Engineering wasn't so bad. Sure, I'm not a big fan of economics, but there was also statistics, and I do enjoy that. From what I could tell, it seemed like there was a better chance I could relax a little bit more in IE. It's still engineering, it's still difficult, but almost accepted on this campus to be a lesser engineering type (though still above the rest, like liberal arts). I would still get killed by thermodynamics, but everybody who hears "aero" goes "ouch. Hope you have no life and want to live in Grissom Hall." Perhaps I could reach the same spot with a different degree, and there was a chance I might relax more. I never though of it when I entered college, but now I'm really enjoying relationships, activities like the Ship of Fools- performing. I'd reached an academic wall, but boy howdy did the rest of me catch up. My supervisors and bosses at several jobs have commented on how I'm capable at work, working with customers and unfamiliar situations. My teachers and family agree that I'm too well rounded, too different to enjoy simply working in a box with numbers all day, and to some extent I agree.

Could I be a manager like my father? Work with engineers? If things were a little different in IE, perhaps I would have a better chance at a job. I certainly wasn't limited like aero. Other than some major spots, like Texas, Florida, or the coasts, there's not much for an aero, and I love it here in the Midwest. With an IE degree, I could work anywhere that employs engineers, basically. I could work in Ohio or Indiana in a hundred different major corporations.

Would that mean anything, though, if I was unhappy? If I felt, like somebody pointed out, that I had quit on my dream? I gave it a shot! Was two years of school and thousands of dollars not "a shot"?? So what if I decided on doing something different. I still want to be an astronaut. Everybody else gets to change their majors or be undecided- so maybe I've finally awoken to the fact that I'm not some genius level rocket scientist and instead I've got too much blue collar in me? Neither of my parents even went to college. I feel like most of the people here take it for granted that their parents pay for their schooling or they go home on the weekends or go drinking to just mess around.

So, with heavy heart I finally convinced myself that I could and would transfer to IE. It seemed like more than a slight concession, but enough factors seemed like positives that I would manage. It's not like this was really my choice...the lack of getting into aero had forced my hand. That was it. No more delusions of grandeur of being that "rocket scientist"- I was set for production analysis and economic planning. Six sigma assembly lines and cost-benefit analysis instead of thrust/drag ratios and Bernouli.

Again, stressing that it's still a Purdue Engineering degree. Still quite prestigious, in my eyes. Just, not quite what I originally envisioned. And it was frightening beyond all reason for somebody who has wanted the same thing since fifth grade to suddenly begin to see so many alternatives. My world came apart for a bit.



And then, right as I'm all set, I call the Purdue Engineering offices and I get this:

Ryan: Hello, my name is Ryan. I'm a sophomore and I'm in freshman engineering trying to get into Aerospace Engineering, and I-
Elizabeth: You made it.
Ryan: *blink* Excuse me?
Elizabeth: You made it. You're in aero engineering.
Ryan: I hate to actually say this, but I did the math. I didn't make it.
Elizabeth: Yeah, well, we changed the cutoff, and you're in. Enjoy.
*click*


What. The fuck.


So now I'm in aerospace engineering! I made it! They changed the cutoff without telling me and my best efforts were enough for me to make it in. I have no idea how, but now I'm all confused. I think I did my job too well, because I almost have doubts about it all now. Again, what I want to do is the same, but perhaps the path has changed.


For now, I'm going to enjoy my success, ill timed and confusing as it was/is. I'm going to get my shirt that says "Purdue Aeronautical Engineering" like I said I would, and I'm celebrating. I am a true rocket scientist in training. I have earned the right to submit myself to more suck, more math, and more brutal classes.

Will I stay? I am going to finish this semester at least as an aero. If I love it, which I strongly think that I will/do, then I will stay. If not, then I suppose I have an idea of what I could consider switching to. Most of my classes will transfer to the other engineering if I do, and if not, I'm on a reasonably good path to finish my degree with probably only one extra semester.



Thoughts?