Engineering. The dream of millions of students, the lifestyle of millions of people, and the bread and butter of probably more people than in any other profession in the world today. Let's explore a few bits and pieces of engineering in today's world.
Engineering is currently going through a revolution. And yes, all credit goes to COVID. But wait before you conclude that! Was engineering ever not going through a revolution?
From the invention of mobiles, the personal computer and then I-phone. Then moving on to recommendation engines, robotics, analytics and much more. There is no such time in history that engineering was normal.
What COVID did was only accelerate the process. We would've moved to a remote working culture in 4–5 years from now, but we're almost there today. It revolutionized every single industry that exists now. Be it healthcare, fintech, pharma, media or any other.
Though all these things are fascinating, engineers suffer from FOMO all the time due to this! (FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out)
This enormous volume of things that are happening along with the pace at which things are evolving is not a cup of tea for everyone. And with the emerging number of fields, it becomes more and more difficult to choose a career.
It's a classical paradox: the more options you have, the more dissatisfied you will be.
Another evolution worth noticing is in the academic side of engineering. Due to prolonged exposure to online classes, there emerged two kinds of students. Those who saw this as an opportunity to get better and those who saw this as an opportunity to have a time of their life.
Easy choices → Hard life. Hard choices → Easy life.
The ones who saw this as an opportunity went on to achieve great feats. But the arising misconception among these students regarding offline classes is separating them from reality.
The belief is that the return to offline mode will reduce productiveness. There's no questioning on that. But, it'll give you the experiences you can't fathom in the online world.
These students are lured into a toxic culture that promotes productivity over any other kind of work. And though there is an argument that online networking tools are much better than before, and the connections that we make online are much better than offline, the thought in itself shows a reluctance towards building actual human relationships.
It also puts a light on the underlying behaviour that these people rely more on social media in times of crisis than to go to an actual person that they can trust in the time of need. No wonder why the number of therapy sessions conducted is increasing every day.
There can be a counter-argument that people feel more comfortable about their vulnerabilities and more open when talking to an online friend which they've made over a course of time. But where is the human element in this relationship?
The strength of your online relationships is as strong as the strength of your wifi signal.
I prefer to call these online peers "connections". This is because, they support us, vote for us, are always there to help us (most of the time, "professionally") and provide us with feedback, which eventually helps us grow and get amazing opportunities that we can't imagine.
But if you consider a life where you can't have trust in anyone around you and all you can trust are people who are "online connected" to you, then to whom will you rely on when you need someone for support? Is there any actual person you'll go to?
No. You'll go to a "friend" whom you met online, who once helped you with your project, or gave you a referral for an opportunity that you wanted, or who once helped you with a concept you were struggling to understand. And you'll expect emotional support from that person, not even being physically present but over a text or a call. Like seriously!
What is the benefit of making online friends when the only one celebrating your successes and supporting you in failures is you alone?
And please, don't say that online friends will also support you and will be happy for you. I can also type "congratulations!" or "let me know how can I help you." with zero effort. These "written" words don't matter to me at least. What I do look for is if the person is genuinely happy or is genuinely trying to help. There's a HUGE difference between the two things.
Those who themselves will fail to form relationships in the real world and have no idea of the effort required to form a real relationship will write about human connections and the processes of building communities, in future. The thought in itself is frightening.
Then on the other side are students who are "enjoying life". These students need to remember that the experiences that they're having are essential, but life is not for enjoyment, it is for education. If you're not devoting yourself to life-long learning (not traditional education), you're destined for an unsatisfied life full of regrets.
"Absolute freedom, in itself, means nothing." - Mark Manson
They're the ones who are somehow addicted to instant gratification. They'll spend their entire lifetime "enjoying" only to think at the end that "what was it all for?"
There is no one who doesn't want that. But the ability to pursue what you want the most and sacrifice what you want now has to be developed. Because you don't want to spend your entire life thinking "If I could have done that" or "What if…"
This is all for today. My goal in writing this article was to highlight a few things that I've noticed and have been thinking about for some time.
Also, note that these are my personal views and are written from my perspective. I'm in no way generalizing these nuances to every person who reads this article.
Thanks for reading!
Connect with me here: bio.link/itsadityagupta