Nobody wants me...

[elwen]

Career fair today. V. depressing. All of the sheets effectively said, "We're looking for people who are . . . not you." It was practically all EE/CS type stuff. Which is no surprise, I suppose. The closest thing to ChemE were some places looking for people in materials engineering. Funny how Applied Materials is probably the most likely place I'd apply to, when I'd always thought I'd never have any to do with what they do. At least I have their t-shirt now, which I've always thought was really cool, that says, "We make the systems, that make the chips, that make the products, that change the world."

But I'm all insecure and worried and indecisive about my major again. I'm pretty sure it's too late to be a EE, even if I truly had more than an "I don't want to starve on the streets" intention of actually doing it. And I'm thinking that environmental ChemE is hopeless, and I wonder why I say I'm interested in semiconductors after that when I clearly lean towards o-chem over p-chem. One would think I'd rather do polymer chemistry. But the truth is I have no idea at all, because I have no experience at all.

At the end of dress dinner I got lectured by a professor for taking too many units, and for not taking advantage of what's really special about Caltech: the research opportunities. I like taking varied classes and all, but I guess I should take that to heart and try to work with professors more next year, rather than taking the negative space to explore more subjects. I should commit to ChemE and start seeing what its sub-field are like, rather than waver, because, really, there's no other major I can do right now.

Law school is also looking more appealing of late, but I don't know how much I like the idea of extending education and further delaying productivity. Being a lawyer seems like you have to invest so much, and it won't pay off for a long, long time. Whereas EE seems like instant gratification in comparison. I mean, if you look at job openings for legal positions at these companies, they say, "We don't want you unless you have a lot of prior experience." When they're looking for EEs, they say, "We want you before you graduate."

In general, I just feel so useless, like I'll never amount to anything. I'm good at very few things, and no one is interested in those.

Comments

[meril.livejournal.com]

Do the research and figure out what it is you do like. If you wobble around changing majors this late in the game, you're going to be screwed because you won't have enough experience and knowledge in anything. Jack of all trades, employed in none.

Hint, from someone who's been in the workforce for half a decade now: do what you like, or you'll never like what you do; don't chase the money just because you feel you have to. Which is why I'm returning to school: to do what I like.

[(Anonymous)]

*symapthizes* Job fairs aren't much nicer to EEs either, as I found out for the first time last weekend. The problem isn't the major, but an individual's skills and experiences.

And that's entirely not a fault - I haven't had a chance to learn all that upper-division specialized stuff yet. Same goes for you and any other college sophomore; lots of the summer internships I was interested in said, "We only want juniors; come back next year."

Just because you haven't had a chance to learn specialized skills now doesn't mean you're not capable of doing well ultimately. Saying your career is kaput today is equivalent to giving a ten-year-old Einstein a quantum mechanics exam and then declaring that he would never amount to anything in physics. :)

- white_moonflowers

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Um, as far as I saw today, the problem was the major. At least in the sense that the skills desired are part of skill set of another major and not of ChemE. Most of the fliers said explicitly, "We want electrical engineers", and if not, they had highly suggestive phrases like, "write code and build systems" or "experience with PCBs". No one was interested in chemistry except maybe a smattering of semiconductor, applied physics type stuff.

[(Anonymous)]

aack - Besides misspelling "sympathizes," I also want to add that I found myself telling the Apple reps I loved digital logic design, when in fact that's the part of EE that I absolutely detest the most.

It's part of the game. -_- But be true to yourself - life is a struggle between the ideal and the real, and the ones who stick closest to the ideal are the happiest in the end.

- white_moonflowers

[nendil.livejournal.com]

Yeah, job fairs don't care much for little undergrads in general. When I look at the CS jobs, I get the impression of "I don't know jack about any of this stuff." And of course, handing out resumes at digital entertainment people never results in any replies. XP

At least you GOT a job last summer... more experience than anything we can hold up.

[dksph.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to comment that Dr. Tombrello is the awesomest prof ever. So you should listen to him, which you appear to want to do =).

[blackrock.livejournal.com]

Job fairs are useless foe me too--no one's looking for geologists without computer skills. You have to go up to the people and sell yourself. Or your soul.

[superpan.livejournal.com]

I WANT YOU! *ahem* I think that my new Lit teacher has made me support Mr. Fritz with his "all lawyers should go to hell" thing. You like ChemE, don't you? Go for it? ^^;; I don't know anything about stuff, so yeah. I will support you no matter what, though. :D

[maruchan.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I don't have anything helpful to say...but I thought it was interesting, because when I was deciding between Ch and ChE, one of the major arguments (I thought) for ChE was that the job market seemed better, and didn't necessarily require grad school.

If you're interested in environmental ChE, I can introduce you to my SURF mentor from last summer - they do a strange combination of Ch/ChE/EE/Aph with environmental applications, and he's an awesome guy. I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you about what he does and maybe give you some ideas of what you can do (esp. since they aren't purely academic and he has some experience in industry).

Oh, and I have a plan...though I've been looking at consulting and teaching myself, recently...I'm pretty sure that if I end up doing pure science 4 life, I'd rather work for industry or myself. So maybe in 10 years, if we're still interested in the environment, we can get together and uh...then we don't need nobody to be interested in us! :P