Squee! I got a little shout out on my new favorite podcast, The Amp Hour. I have to admit, it was a little weird listening to two strangers discuss my decision to go into electrical engineering but I’m always open to opinions. I have a brief discussion of my story in my inaugural post, but I wanted to address some of the questions posed in the podcast.
Why?
Many reasons. I went into undergrad convinced that I wanted to be a medical doctor and so I majored in biochemistry. I loved DNA and genetics and I thought that this would be the best fit. Little did I know that biochemistry was mostly horribly confusing cycles like this. I worked in a lab researching chemokines for about a year and a half and realized that my options were some sort of professional school, a PhD in Biochem or going into something like pharma sales. I spent a summer working at a large law firm and really enjoyed it so to law school I went.
Then, I learned what lawyering was really about. It was not the shiny 9-5 internship that I did over the summer. It was a job of long days, long nights and minimal weekends. In big firms, most of the clients are large companies and cases drag on for years, sometimes decades. I spent a summer in law school working at a local non-profit and loved the work but couldn’t see myself lasting very long before getting really burned out.
My husband likes to tell the story of one day during my first semester of law school, I was so frustrated with the socratic method and the “grey logic” that I pulled out an old differential equations book and started working problems. I craved the simplicity and beauty of pure math. I craved the notion of a “right answer.” I was too stubborn to recognize that maybe that was an indicator that law school was not the best fit for me so I finished law school.
Did I work as a lawyer?
I did a variety of internships during law school and clerked for a judge but never worked as a lawyer. Due to hefty scholarships and family support, I managed to get through undergrad and law school without loans, which gave me the freedom to head back to school. I was a little nervous about the experience but it’s just as magical as I thought it would be. I’m actually really good at it so far.
Did I tinker much as a kid?
Not really. I was more of a bookworm/math geek. I read . . . a lot. Anything and everything I could get my hands on. I had older brothers so I loved legos and such and I made various contraptions but I didn’t have anything as dramatic as Feynman’s propensity for fixing radios as a teeny lad. I LOVED “brain teasers” and those kind of problems that really made you think. I remember reading the “Sideways Stories From Wayside School” in second grade which introduced verbal arithmetic and I was hooked on that for a while.
Anyway, I really need to go study for my programming exam, so I’m going to end this fairly abruptly. I went to a lecture on robotics last night and I plan to address that later today, get ready!