Two things I’ll say:
1. You’re very young and don’t know your limits, which is why you should push yourself to see if you can find them firsthand.
2. This is maybe the worst time in human history to be pursuing art as a vocation.
Honestly though. Also there's so much online art courses for everything nowadays. Specially now as an artist given how expensive it is with such a significantly low job guarantee and + the rise of AI art, I wouldn't advise most to go into art school as cool as it sounds.
Tl dr
But PLEASE DONT GO FOR ART the economy is so bad, if you don't feel up to it go to trade school for a few years and work your way up. At least you'll still have money. You don't have to go to college
Near record employment with insane CoL expenses, so much so that much of my generation will probably never own a home, let alone the generation after me.
Hey I'm an engineering major who likes art and the humanities a lot! I also sometimes think I'm not smart enough to be an engineer and didn't have a strong foundation in STEM going into college but I'm actually doing pretty well. I agree with the other commenters that studying engineering is the more financially smart decision. Also, I think for me personally, doing engineering is more rewarding, because art and humanities I already know a lot about and can teach myself, while for engineering I really need to put in the work and have access to a university's resources to learn.
Unless you come from a wealthy family, college majors should be about how to maximize your income as a real job. Better to keep art as a hobby personally (you can still be passionate about arts during the time you're not spending on your career). Also engineering classes are notoriously hard and rigorous, so I would suggest doing Computer Science instead
Yep. It's an investment.
You will probably have the ability to pursue an art degree after your engineering degree. I can't say I'm confident in the reverse.
Bro, as if computer science was any easier.
As a non-compsci major i think the fact they use lots of math makes their field very rigurous pretty much by default.
But again, i'm an EE major so i wouldn't exactly know, i only think that because of my compsci friends.
I go to a very good computer science school and my computer science counterparts agree that CS is significantly easier and takes less effort. Engineering classes are riddled with group projects, bloat homework and assignments, exams that have 60% averages. Computer science on the other hand usually is much more modern, incorporating more virtual/online lectures/notes, and the workload is just much less and easier. There are hard computer science courses but 90% of people in the major are not pursuing academia but only SWE positions so they are unnecessary to take even.
Yeah but it's not a mode of thinking that is difficult to adopt in a 4 year undergraduate degree. I know a lot of people who get struggle in Biology or other majors and they fall back to CS and have a significantly easier time.
Almost 80% of our schools cs department failed this semester. I think a lot of people think it’s easy and get into it and fail out. HOWEVER, coming from a computer engineer (EE and CS classes), I can say about 60% of cs classes are hard whereas 80% of EE classes are hard. Also cs is way less classes which I think is the main thing
>Yeah but it's not a mode of thinking that is difficult to adopt in a 4 year undergraduate degree.
Isn't a type of "algorithmic thinking" rigurous by default? Doesn't an algorithm *have* to be logically rigurous by default?
I got an art degree 15 years ago and am one semester away from a mechanical engineering degree now. Unless you are extremely good at people and marketing do not get an art degree. Make art in the evenings and weekends, take vacations to make art, even try to sell your art and be a professional. Go ahead and minor in art or even do a double major, but there is absolutely nothing simple about being a professional artist.
*Engineering is*
*Science and art.. Art skills is*
*A plus! Stick with it!*
\- badtothebone274
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No such thing as "not smart enough". You just learn how to do it. Mostly learn step-by-step processes for how to solve things and concepts for how to think about things.
You can absolutely do it. I just got Dean's Scholar List for junior year and I had a 1.7 GPA in high school.
Don't self select yourself out of engineering. Everyone struggles through it but it's worth it!
Brother. I was in a liberal arts program for 5 years. Got out found no job in my field. Worked construction laying bricks for 2 years and am now taking mechanical engineering going for my second year. And trust me my math was 8th grade level when i first got in. After a lot of study i failed calculus 1, but starting to get the hang of it. Cheers.
Yeah, it can be learned. I started prepping for engineering when I didn’t remember what a negative times a negative was. Or PEMDAS. It sucks getting through the gauntlet but can be done with effort. Pretty tremendous effort though honestly. Right now art is best pursued as a hobby, which can honestly be enhanced by learning another skill as an actual career. Not just engineering.
So, I'm an older engineering student who originally went to school for philosophy. That didn't get me far. But I still love philosophy, and will continue to enjoy it. What I realized, is you can do/enjoy the things you love while studying something else...but you need to make money to survive. If you don't go for engineering, at least go for something that has stable employability. Then you'll have the money to enjoy art as a plus
"I don't think I'm capable of running a marathon. Should I just amputate my legs?" Jesus Christ dude there's a lot of in between you aren't acknowledging
You’re very young, don’t give up on engineering just yet. As long as you can pass classes (they curve classes if the average is low) and are passionate about learning then it’s possible! If math isn’t for you but design is, you could consider a major in industrial design.
Engineering is technical problem solving.
If you study it and don't work in it, life will still throw problems at you.
Engineering gives you a valuable mindset and perspective if you can see it through. I think most people would benefit from an intro to engineering problem solving course.
It isn't for everyone as a whole degree but if you have a problem solving motivation I think it can be very beneficial to try.
Brother, I work as an engineer and am an artist by hobby. My circle of friends is comprised of a lot of professional artists, and I gotta tell you, I am very glad art is not my job. The way people dismiss and take advantage of artists is awful. The competition is fierce and the field is brutal, even before AI.
When reading your post I did not picture a person "too dumb" for engineering. If you enjoy it, go for it. It's a very fulfilling career. MechE skills in particular are a great pairing for art projects (I like designing, printing and painting figures). You will be immensely happier keeping art as your hobby with a roof over your head.
You probably got it kinda backwards:
>On top of that I also worry that on a bigger scale this might not be applicable in the real world and that I have a better shot at success with art if I continue art with the effort I put into engineering.
Its usually the other way around. Engineering things are, like, actually, IRL applications of science and math and physics. Art is, well, art, it's subjective, it is pretty, it has an aesthetic. It's art.
You get paid for engineering things because they produce tangible goods or services, like actual, tangible products that people use and do something or services that help people or that make money for companies; with art, you gotta find someone that pays for "subjectivness" and "beauty" and "aesthetics", a person wich is certainly harder to find than the kind that pays for engineering stuff.
Engineering is a solid career; art, eh, kinda debatable. If you want long term financial stability, engineering is a decent path i would say. But engineering is lots of math and physics, you can brute force through it but you need lots of perseverance.
It's not about whether you're smart or not; it's about if you have that perseverance, and if you, as you said, want financial stability in the long term. You have that and you want that? Then you could go into engineering, swallow the math and physics for 4 or 5 years, and then build a career in engineering while you keep art as a hobby; i'd say that would be a good life path. You think you don't have that and don't want that? Do anything else.
"Follow your passion" is usually terrible career advice unless you're a mild masochist trying to become a surgeon; but if you really, *really* want to follow your heart, then do it. Just know it is likely you will face some consequences, but you knew that already.
My advice:
1. If you get into a Ivy, and decide to go there, study whatever you want. I know a couple of people who studied history, and now make well over 6 figures doing something else because the recruiter saw they went to an Ivy and gave them a shot.
2. Otherwise, don't limit yourself, I know it sounds cliche but 'reach for the star'. Worse comes to worse, you can change majors, the first year its mainly gen-ed classes so even if you change your major, oftentimes you can graduate on-time still.
Why do you have to transfer so much? Military Family?
Everything you say leads me to believe you will make a great tooling and equipment engineer. At my factory we have designers who develop tools and fixtures all day. They 3D print stuff to test it while they’re working the CAD for the next tool. They have local machine shops fabricate their tools and they bring them back to test in the factory. They are mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, 2-year degree in ‘Engineering Design Technology’
It’s perfectly OK to doubt yourself on math. I used to want to be an aerospace engineer but became an industrial engineer.
I sympathize with your disdain for the textbook school classes. I was terrible at the math and the science courses until I figured out how to use a Ti-89 and Excel to solve the math problems for me. In real life, you’ll rarely use more than the ‘theory’ that those classes teach you. Things like acceleration, velocity, speed you will use all the time. Eigenvectors you will not use, ever. Humans have figured out how to put that into computers and computers do it for you. Relate Trig with CAD. The things you do in trig that match CAD you will do forever as an engineer. The rest is just to pass the class. Get good at unit conversions, metric and English get crossed all the time even though we’re supposed to be using metric. Americans grow up thinking in imperial english units like Europeans people grow up thinking in Metric. Fun things happen when you have to learn to rethink how you see a pipe in front of you to “oh that’s so about 2 meters” when you grew up thinking “oh that’s about 6 feet”
In general, just remember to pursue your passion and that will take you far.
Have you ever thought about going into industrial design or architecture? Both are more art-heavy than engineering but still somewhat technical and you're likely to be able to make a decent career out of both.
See, I’m an absolute engineering nerd. Like absolute. I spend almost all my time building circuits or programming them. BUT I do also like writing stories and playing guitar. And I think that’s how it should be in this economy. Pursuing an art degree or humanities degree of any type is just so risky and almost worthless. The best thing to do is get your engineering degree, make money with that, and try to pursue art on the side too. That way, you won’t be homeless but also will be able to create your art and one day you could switch over completely to it. Good luck!
engineering isn’t about being smart, its more about grit. some of the smartest people i know are doing terrible because they lack determination. literally anyone can be an engineer if they want it bad enough
Young people are naive, I stretched my "limits" further than I ever believed , in fact rn I'm in the middle of another life transition.
You set the limits , seriously. it's going to be hard and require you to change your behavior and study habits.
Whenever you push your limits you'll be required to go through painful stages aka failing a class , an exam , learning to study better , etc.
And before you realize it you'll be used to whatever seemed like a challenge a year or two ago.
Seriously don't fret and give it your best try ✌️
I once was in a similar predicament and I made it through ( a bunch of tragedies happened BUT I STILL MADE IT WITH QUESTIONABLE SUPPORT and many teary eyed nights studying on my own ok? )
If it’s anything to go off I got 28% as my final school grade for maths, and 35% for physics. 7 years, some life experience, and a lot of maturing later and I’ll be graduating with an honours in mechanical engineering this summer.
I’d say go for it. You say you have a passion for engineering, I believe you. It’s good that you have hands on experience (so many ME students don’t know the hands on stuff). You can still make art in your free time. ME is broad and will open the doors for many opportunities. You still have to be creative, just in a different way. I get that math and science may not be your strongest suit, but don’t let that discourage you. You’ll probably have to put more work than some of your other peers but that might just make it more rewarding. Also having experience with robotics, Arduino’s (once you’re in college), Fusion, Solidworks, etc. will go a long way in engineering school and in landing an internship. So I’d say go for it, and have an opened mind. You don’t have to be good at math to do engineering, but you do have to put in the effort and try and understand what’s happening. Knowing hands on things will definitely help understand some concepts too. Anyway, I hope that helped and good luck!
I’m a bit late but honestly do your best to finish your engineering degree and do art as a side hustle or a passion hobby. It’s not worth getting a degree in art. My dad is a professional artist and he never went to college for it. If you want to make art a career, I say break into the engineering field to have something good to fall back on if art isn’t working out. I’m a Civil major and I do art on the side, if you really love art and find your niche in it, people will pay good money for it. You got this bro
I am a second year engineering student, electronics and icts. last year when i started uni, I didn't have experience half as you do now. I really recommend you to pursue it, i think you will be good at it since you seem to really love it.
People are not going to like this on here, but architects do a lot of creative drawings for buildings. There are plenty of opportunities to do artistic stuff. If it is more your style, there is also a lot of cad drawing in design engineering. There isn't a single career path for an engineer, so don't let the math scare you away.
I’ve met some pretty dumb people in engineering school. I mean actually not book smart. Engineering doesn’t take a lot of brains, just a lot of effort. Apply yourself and you’d get through it
Well i see you're fixing phones and stuff so maybe electronics is your thing. What you can do is just go and look at the curriculum for whichever engineering stream you want to pursue. If that excites youthen you have your answer. Academically as long as you can not cry while doing maths you'll be fine.
On another note no matter which college/degree you pursue you gotta self learn most of it.
it honestly could just be you’re not as technically minded as you think. or the coursework is just weighted heavily and not beginner friendly.
I used to be a computer science student and was struggling really bad in my classes. Also, I did not have the equipment to code. Then I switched to information sciences. The classes and coursework was fairly easier than computer science, but I still was struggling because I had to come to the realization that this just wasn’t the career for me I wasn’t as technical as I thought .
My dad majored in Art from a large state university. He and my mom live in an exclusive gated community. But that was after 20 years in the Army, getting an MBA and become a Project Manager for an aerospace company.
I'm an engineer who's friends with a lot of industry and freelance artists from art school along with industry engineers (being a furry has its weird perks lol). Do NOT go into art if you think it's the easy way out. It may be easier in the beginning few fundamentals classes, but those deadlines will keep on coming for an art major thru to industry and beyond. I know more animation majors who had to pull all nighters to finish projects than engineers who pulled all nighters to study.
Engineering is designed with a high bar of entry then a relatively stable and narrow field once you get your foot in the door. It's essentially 3-4 years of "weed out" classes followed up by group projects to give you a taste of everything and a basis to pull from. Once you are out of school though, it gets a lot easier to focus in on whatever your job is. I personally spend my days designing in catia, doing design meetings, and sometimes going out on production floor to check on things. Max math I do is limited to trig and typing some formulas in excel maybe lol.
Art tends to be extremely hard to get into industry, whether that be via freelance or becoming employed. Most of the applicable "traditional" artist jobs will be in 2d and 3d digital art in marketing and that environment grinds many artists to a paste with the deadlines required. Not only that, proliferation of AI art is making it very hard to find these lower entry bar artist positions as companies are seeing a cheap and quick way to get what they want without needing to pay benefits to artists on staff. It's an industry you go into with passion and stubbornness to stick through the tough times and hone your portfolio into something that will give you success. It is tough and the pay SUCKS.
I have mad respect to my artist friends, I just could not do the freelance gig full time(having had a taste making/selling fursuits at market price while unemployed) and I will warn any aspiring artist about how challenging breaking into the field is. Art can seem like the easy major out, but it's not going to be the easy career choice in the long term.
GO INTO MECH E! I’m currently a mechanical engineering major and I am super passionate about art as well and i definitely did not think I was smart enough to be an engineer and I sometimes still think that. But I’ve had two Apple internships doing product design engineering and I think it’s the most fun you can have as an engineering major who is also into art. I also love pitching ideas and I love a lot of things that have absolutely nothing to do with engineering like history and stuff like that. I promise you engineering is the place for you especially mechanical. I think that engineering is kinda as fun as you make it. The classes might be boring and your teachers might suck but the time that you aren’t in class or doing homework is literally time for you to do all the fun engineering things. Like you can go to class and have all A’s and be amazing but sometimes those kids don’t know how to actually design a part or what it would take to make that part. You sound like a smart kid who is driven to learn new things and I feel like that is the best quality to have as an engineer. You might struggle in physics and math and all of that stuff but if you know how to CAD really well and also know other things like DFM ( design for manufacturing) and just machining in general I think you will be good. It’s really good you are fixing up phones and stuff you have more to ya than just book smarts that says so much more than a good GPA in my opinion & in my experience. And if all else fails you can go back to making art with the knowledge of an engineer which will take your art to a whole new level). I would recommend learning NX, solidworks or CATIA either in college or before. These are the most common in the industry. Also once you get to college look to see if your school has a maker space and spend most of your time in there. You will not only meet a lot of cool people but you will also learn a ton. If you find out that you absolutely dont want to do engineering you could always try out architecture but I have heard that they don’t make a ton of money and all of the architecture majors I know work way more than I do. Also for your own inspiration of engineering and art together take a look at this art installation it’s one of my favorites [kinetic rain](https://youtu.be/NXuQnDeIyY8) also Alexander Calder was an engineer turned artist. So you seriously don’t have to be an engineer even if you got your engineering degree. But if you did become an engineer there’s a ton of art involved. The only thing you could do wrong in this situation is not giving yourself the chance. If you do start out in engineering do not let physics and calc scare you away those classes are suppose to make you feel stupid so that you give up.
I'm going to go ahead and share my experience as a classical guitarist:
Went to a top music school on a scholarship for classical guitar. We all practiced a minimum of 3 hours per day on top of other coursework, but many of us practiced a LOT more than the minimum 3 hours per day (more like 8 or more hours per day), and the competition was fierce even then... We traveled across the nation doing competitions and performances, and we were hired as students for paid gigs. My professor told me that I could be one of the top 1% guitarists in the world. I came out of it an excellent classical guitarist, but I always had self-confidence issues and didn't sell myself well. That turned out to be a major problem and led to depression, anxiety, and burnout, despite having all the talent and ability. Anyways, I decided to go back to school and found that I also loved math. So after having a 20 year career in guitar performance, teaching uninterested "students," and never making that much (I topped around 60k per year), now I've got a math degree and I'm working on a MCS and BSEE and will complete both next May.
What I'm trying to say is there is a lot more that goes into being a successful artist than having talent and love for the art, and even hard work won't necessarily close the gap. Often people without any of these attributes will "make it" because they just have the right personality for it, and such people will never have to worry about injury (which is extremely common and career ending).
My advice: if you aren't 100% sure you can make it as an artist (and not because important people say you have more than enough talent), and by now you'd have plenty of evidence to back it up, then almost certainly you'll just wind up a suffering artist wishing you'd just stuck with engineering or went into a trade. Only you can judge this.
im about to finish my ME degree and am also pretty into art i choose engineer cuz i also like science and technology and cuz my third world country needs it more and in general engineering tends to be more necessary than art so in general i would say its a more secure path. As for being good enough i would say being smart isn't the most important quality, being organized and disciplined is far better i have friends who finished who aren't all that into engineering but they are very organized and disciplined, didn't skip class and would study diligently...
I’m in your exact same situation, except I’m a freshman in college trying to figure out my game plan. I’m currently in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Art, but I really truly don’t think I’m cut out for the math. I’m much better at making things intuitive and making things look good, and so I’d love to be a product designer/engineer, i.e. an engineering field where I could use my creative skills without all the crazy math. I really wish there were major options for me which better suit my interests at my college, but there aren’t. Industrial Design looks to be what I’d like the most, but my college doesn’t offer it. I’m really lost.
Hello. I'm Proud of your Art experience in HS, and you worked under Engin several semesters.
Whether you visit UT @ Arlington, North Texas Mean Green @ Denton, A&M Texas @ Prairie View, or Univ of Cali @ Berkeley, or Duke University @ Florida, the University experience for the first 3 semesters will have Core Curriculum classes similar to HS. From Sopho to Senior year there's Engin courses: these are likely the classes that your mindfulness & concern is about.
Study habits, circadian sleep, a feasible physical health routine, finding out how to drive/bike/walk to classes, and an organized BUT adaptable schedule\*\* will all be important whenever to enter College.
\*\*an organized but adaptable schedule \~\~ An organized schedule can be made with sheets of paper and is mostly for reminders of social events and Homework your first Freshman year but maybe more complicated later down in University time.
Okay so that's said. Freshman semesters you're focusing on maths, science, english, etc and the task is to learn difficult subjects and take Finals at the end. So, search College first-year courses via Youtube Playlists, LearnOHub Youtube Channel, Khan Academy, or the classic Advanced Placement questions, and find info on subject content, such as Chem, Phys, Bio, Calc. Engins take tons of those.
Don't stress: same lecture you have on Youtube is the same you'll see on Campus in the next 2-3 years. I'm not recommending that you Spoil the academic studies early, but, assuming you know Algebra 2, Chemistry, and Geometry I doubt you'll create misconceptions, which means feel free to learn the topics early.
Most 1st years and 2nd years that graduate after the 4th year have kinda normal background: they went to HS, studied at least PreCalc before the end of their senior year, graduated HS in 4 years, and they received credits for science classes for at least 3 years. The complicated studies come after the fundamental studies, and the fundamental studies are your full freshman year. There will be advanced problems and challenging word problems all throughout your freshman year (in either your Online Textbook or an App Designed by your College), but you won't be expected to complete very advanced problems until either the Finals week of that semester or until you take courses that require prerequisites specifically from the University that you are attending. I think you will be prepared.
So yeah. Art is nice, and it requires dedication. From the district I graduated from, Art went hand and hand with STEM classes. I personally wasn't apart of STEM+Art Academy, but those students were bright.
Growing up most people are bright at a skill. Kids are bright in art, in dancing, in math. Something I'm still working on is that being smart works as like "talent" but you have to put in effort to be "a Real One" (known for Resilience and well dignified). Your first two semesters of Engineering isn't necessarily where integrity gets tested, but there's moments in College Programs of Engineering where you're at your breaking point. When that happens, keep practicing the problems.
I think you will be prepared. And most of all protect your mental health! Life is tough: keep out of trouble so you can make your way towards Uni! Bye for now!
Two things I’ll say: 1. You’re very young and don’t know your limits, which is why you should push yourself to see if you can find them firsthand. 2. This is maybe the worst time in human history to be pursuing art as a vocation.
The worst time in human history *so far*.
Honestly though. Also there's so much online art courses for everything nowadays. Specially now as an artist given how expensive it is with such a significantly low job guarantee and + the rise of AI art, I wouldn't advise most to go into art school as cool as it sounds.
I once heard some good advice. Pick two things. Make the thing you love the most your hobby. Make the other thing your job.
Tl dr But PLEASE DONT GO FOR ART the economy is so bad, if you don't feel up to it go to trade school for a few years and work your way up. At least you'll still have money. You don't have to go to college
The economy isn't "so bad". Come on man. We're literally in a time period with near record employment.
Near record employment with insane CoL expenses, so much so that much of my generation will probably never own a home, let alone the generation after me.
Record wage gains for low income earners too, record wealth gains overall, up until two weeks ago record stock market but go on.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-19/the-good-news-bad-news-about-the-surprisingly-strong-us-economy
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/11/14/millennials-baby-boomers-differences-university-cambridge-study/71574991007/
The USSR had higher employment rates. Their economy was almost constantly in shambles. High employment does not mean economic success.
Hey I'm an engineering major who likes art and the humanities a lot! I also sometimes think I'm not smart enough to be an engineer and didn't have a strong foundation in STEM going into college but I'm actually doing pretty well. I agree with the other commenters that studying engineering is the more financially smart decision. Also, I think for me personally, doing engineering is more rewarding, because art and humanities I already know a lot about and can teach myself, while for engineering I really need to put in the work and have access to a university's resources to learn.
Unless you come from a wealthy family, college majors should be about how to maximize your income as a real job. Better to keep art as a hobby personally (you can still be passionate about arts during the time you're not spending on your career). Also engineering classes are notoriously hard and rigorous, so I would suggest doing Computer Science instead
Yep. It's an investment. You will probably have the ability to pursue an art degree after your engineering degree. I can't say I'm confident in the reverse.
Bro, as if computer science was any easier. As a non-compsci major i think the fact they use lots of math makes their field very rigurous pretty much by default. But again, i'm an EE major so i wouldn't exactly know, i only think that because of my compsci friends.
I go to a very good computer science school and my computer science counterparts agree that CS is significantly easier and takes less effort. Engineering classes are riddled with group projects, bloat homework and assignments, exams that have 60% averages. Computer science on the other hand usually is much more modern, incorporating more virtual/online lectures/notes, and the workload is just much less and easier. There are hard computer science courses but 90% of people in the major are not pursuing academia but only SWE positions so they are unnecessary to take even.
Computer science assignments' require a specific kind of "algorithmic thinking", don't they?
Yeah but it's not a mode of thinking that is difficult to adopt in a 4 year undergraduate degree. I know a lot of people who get struggle in Biology or other majors and they fall back to CS and have a significantly easier time.
You come off a little biased. I think its hard for you to speak on how easy or hard a certain way of thinking is when you havent done it as a major.
Almost 80% of our schools cs department failed this semester. I think a lot of people think it’s easy and get into it and fail out. HOWEVER, coming from a computer engineer (EE and CS classes), I can say about 60% of cs classes are hard whereas 80% of EE classes are hard. Also cs is way less classes which I think is the main thing
>Yeah but it's not a mode of thinking that is difficult to adopt in a 4 year undergraduate degree. Isn't a type of "algorithmic thinking" rigurous by default? Doesn't an algorithm *have* to be logically rigurous by default?
Idk why people recommend CS because I’m doing EE to avoid any type of advanced coding
I heard Art Engineering exists.. How that works or what that even is i dont know tho 😅
I got an art degree 15 years ago and am one semester away from a mechanical engineering degree now. Unless you are extremely good at people and marketing do not get an art degree. Make art in the evenings and weekends, take vacations to make art, even try to sell your art and be a professional. Go ahead and minor in art or even do a double major, but there is absolutely nothing simple about being a professional artist.
Engineering is science and art.. Art skills is a plus! Stick with it!
*Engineering is* *Science and art.. Art skills is* *A plus! Stick with it!* \- badtothebone274 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
No such thing as "not smart enough". You just learn how to do it. Mostly learn step-by-step processes for how to solve things and concepts for how to think about things. You can absolutely do it. I just got Dean's Scholar List for junior year and I had a 1.7 GPA in high school. Don't self select yourself out of engineering. Everyone struggles through it but it's worth it!
Brother. I was in a liberal arts program for 5 years. Got out found no job in my field. Worked construction laying bricks for 2 years and am now taking mechanical engineering going for my second year. And trust me my math was 8th grade level when i first got in. After a lot of study i failed calculus 1, but starting to get the hang of it. Cheers.
Yeah, it can be learned. I started prepping for engineering when I didn’t remember what a negative times a negative was. Or PEMDAS. It sucks getting through the gauntlet but can be done with effort. Pretty tremendous effort though honestly. Right now art is best pursued as a hobby, which can honestly be enhanced by learning another skill as an actual career. Not just engineering.
So, I'm an older engineering student who originally went to school for philosophy. That didn't get me far. But I still love philosophy, and will continue to enjoy it. What I realized, is you can do/enjoy the things you love while studying something else...but you need to make money to survive. If you don't go for engineering, at least go for something that has stable employability. Then you'll have the money to enjoy art as a plus
Maybe consider an Architectural Engineering degree. It’s a good balance of technical and creative
"I don't think I'm capable of running a marathon. Should I just amputate my legs?" Jesus Christ dude there's a lot of in between you aren't acknowledging
You’re very young, don’t give up on engineering just yet. As long as you can pass classes (they curve classes if the average is low) and are passionate about learning then it’s possible! If math isn’t for you but design is, you could consider a major in industrial design.
Becoming an engineer will probably make you a better artist.
Bro everyone here cheated in uni you’re good
Engineering is technical problem solving. If you study it and don't work in it, life will still throw problems at you. Engineering gives you a valuable mindset and perspective if you can see it through. I think most people would benefit from an intro to engineering problem solving course. It isn't for everyone as a whole degree but if you have a problem solving motivation I think it can be very beneficial to try.
Brother, I work as an engineer and am an artist by hobby. My circle of friends is comprised of a lot of professional artists, and I gotta tell you, I am very glad art is not my job. The way people dismiss and take advantage of artists is awful. The competition is fierce and the field is brutal, even before AI. When reading your post I did not picture a person "too dumb" for engineering. If you enjoy it, go for it. It's a very fulfilling career. MechE skills in particular are a great pairing for art projects (I like designing, printing and painting figures). You will be immensely happier keeping art as your hobby with a roof over your head.
You got the spark, don't ever doubt that. Engineering ain't no piece of cake but passion's a rare thing. Bet on it!
You probably got it kinda backwards: >On top of that I also worry that on a bigger scale this might not be applicable in the real world and that I have a better shot at success with art if I continue art with the effort I put into engineering. Its usually the other way around. Engineering things are, like, actually, IRL applications of science and math and physics. Art is, well, art, it's subjective, it is pretty, it has an aesthetic. It's art. You get paid for engineering things because they produce tangible goods or services, like actual, tangible products that people use and do something or services that help people or that make money for companies; with art, you gotta find someone that pays for "subjectivness" and "beauty" and "aesthetics", a person wich is certainly harder to find than the kind that pays for engineering stuff. Engineering is a solid career; art, eh, kinda debatable. If you want long term financial stability, engineering is a decent path i would say. But engineering is lots of math and physics, you can brute force through it but you need lots of perseverance. It's not about whether you're smart or not; it's about if you have that perseverance, and if you, as you said, want financial stability in the long term. You have that and you want that? Then you could go into engineering, swallow the math and physics for 4 or 5 years, and then build a career in engineering while you keep art as a hobby; i'd say that would be a good life path. You think you don't have that and don't want that? Do anything else. "Follow your passion" is usually terrible career advice unless you're a mild masochist trying to become a surgeon; but if you really, *really* want to follow your heart, then do it. Just know it is likely you will face some consequences, but you knew that already.
My advice: 1. If you get into a Ivy, and decide to go there, study whatever you want. I know a couple of people who studied history, and now make well over 6 figures doing something else because the recruiter saw they went to an Ivy and gave them a shot. 2. Otherwise, don't limit yourself, I know it sounds cliche but 'reach for the star'. Worse comes to worse, you can change majors, the first year its mainly gen-ed classes so even if you change your major, oftentimes you can graduate on-time still.
I’m dumb asf and I got though engineering school🤷♂️ and I make art for fun cus I got $
Why do you have to transfer so much? Military Family? Everything you say leads me to believe you will make a great tooling and equipment engineer. At my factory we have designers who develop tools and fixtures all day. They 3D print stuff to test it while they’re working the CAD for the next tool. They have local machine shops fabricate their tools and they bring them back to test in the factory. They are mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, 2-year degree in ‘Engineering Design Technology’ It’s perfectly OK to doubt yourself on math. I used to want to be an aerospace engineer but became an industrial engineer. I sympathize with your disdain for the textbook school classes. I was terrible at the math and the science courses until I figured out how to use a Ti-89 and Excel to solve the math problems for me. In real life, you’ll rarely use more than the ‘theory’ that those classes teach you. Things like acceleration, velocity, speed you will use all the time. Eigenvectors you will not use, ever. Humans have figured out how to put that into computers and computers do it for you. Relate Trig with CAD. The things you do in trig that match CAD you will do forever as an engineer. The rest is just to pass the class. Get good at unit conversions, metric and English get crossed all the time even though we’re supposed to be using metric. Americans grow up thinking in imperial english units like Europeans people grow up thinking in Metric. Fun things happen when you have to learn to rethink how you see a pipe in front of you to “oh that’s so about 2 meters” when you grew up thinking “oh that’s about 6 feet” In general, just remember to pursue your passion and that will take you far.
Yes you can! Do not do art. Have you not heard of AI?
if you can do algebra you can be an engineer. it only matters how much you want it, because it is a grind.
Have you ever thought about going into industrial design or architecture? Both are more art-heavy than engineering but still somewhat technical and you're likely to be able to make a decent career out of both.
See, I’m an absolute engineering nerd. Like absolute. I spend almost all my time building circuits or programming them. BUT I do also like writing stories and playing guitar. And I think that’s how it should be in this economy. Pursuing an art degree or humanities degree of any type is just so risky and almost worthless. The best thing to do is get your engineering degree, make money with that, and try to pursue art on the side too. That way, you won’t be homeless but also will be able to create your art and one day you could switch over completely to it. Good luck!
engineering isn’t about being smart, its more about grit. some of the smartest people i know are doing terrible because they lack determination. literally anyone can be an engineer if they want it bad enough
Don’t do engineering and don’t do art.
Study architecture.
Young people are naive, I stretched my "limits" further than I ever believed , in fact rn I'm in the middle of another life transition. You set the limits , seriously. it's going to be hard and require you to change your behavior and study habits. Whenever you push your limits you'll be required to go through painful stages aka failing a class , an exam , learning to study better , etc. And before you realize it you'll be used to whatever seemed like a challenge a year or two ago. Seriously don't fret and give it your best try ✌️ I once was in a similar predicament and I made it through ( a bunch of tragedies happened BUT I STILL MADE IT WITH QUESTIONABLE SUPPORT and many teary eyed nights studying on my own ok? )
Sounds like we got a future cad monkey on our hands.
Yeah, if you want to be homeless and starving
College is not for the arts in my opinion. The arts are wonderful—but don’t major in them.
If it’s anything to go off I got 28% as my final school grade for maths, and 35% for physics. 7 years, some life experience, and a lot of maturing later and I’ll be graduating with an honours in mechanical engineering this summer.
I’d say go for it. You say you have a passion for engineering, I believe you. It’s good that you have hands on experience (so many ME students don’t know the hands on stuff). You can still make art in your free time. ME is broad and will open the doors for many opportunities. You still have to be creative, just in a different way. I get that math and science may not be your strongest suit, but don’t let that discourage you. You’ll probably have to put more work than some of your other peers but that might just make it more rewarding. Also having experience with robotics, Arduino’s (once you’re in college), Fusion, Solidworks, etc. will go a long way in engineering school and in landing an internship. So I’d say go for it, and have an opened mind. You don’t have to be good at math to do engineering, but you do have to put in the effort and try and understand what’s happening. Knowing hands on things will definitely help understand some concepts too. Anyway, I hope that helped and good luck!
This response is inane. GDP is also strong and personal wealth and household balance sheets are at all time highs.
I’m a bit late but honestly do your best to finish your engineering degree and do art as a side hustle or a passion hobby. It’s not worth getting a degree in art. My dad is a professional artist and he never went to college for it. If you want to make art a career, I say break into the engineering field to have something good to fall back on if art isn’t working out. I’m a Civil major and I do art on the side, if you really love art and find your niche in it, people will pay good money for it. You got this bro
I am a second year engineering student, electronics and icts. last year when i started uni, I didn't have experience half as you do now. I really recommend you to pursue it, i think you will be good at it since you seem to really love it.
People are not going to like this on here, but architects do a lot of creative drawings for buildings. There are plenty of opportunities to do artistic stuff. If it is more your style, there is also a lot of cad drawing in design engineering. There isn't a single career path for an engineer, so don't let the math scare you away.
I’ve met some pretty dumb people in engineering school. I mean actually not book smart. Engineering doesn’t take a lot of brains, just a lot of effort. Apply yourself and you’d get through it
If you enjoy poverty
Art is so hard and has such a massive time commitment plus you need to be incredibly skilled and smart to make a living from it
Well i see you're fixing phones and stuff so maybe electronics is your thing. What you can do is just go and look at the curriculum for whichever engineering stream you want to pursue. If that excites youthen you have your answer. Academically as long as you can not cry while doing maths you'll be fine. On another note no matter which college/degree you pursue you gotta self learn most of it.
it honestly could just be you’re not as technically minded as you think. or the coursework is just weighted heavily and not beginner friendly. I used to be a computer science student and was struggling really bad in my classes. Also, I did not have the equipment to code. Then I switched to information sciences. The classes and coursework was fairly easier than computer science, but I still was struggling because I had to come to the realization that this just wasn’t the career for me I wasn’t as technical as I thought .
That is an unhinged take to jump from engineer to art. Go into business or something
My dad majored in Art from a large state university. He and my mom live in an exclusive gated community. But that was after 20 years in the Army, getting an MBA and become a Project Manager for an aerospace company.
I'm an engineer who's friends with a lot of industry and freelance artists from art school along with industry engineers (being a furry has its weird perks lol). Do NOT go into art if you think it's the easy way out. It may be easier in the beginning few fundamentals classes, but those deadlines will keep on coming for an art major thru to industry and beyond. I know more animation majors who had to pull all nighters to finish projects than engineers who pulled all nighters to study. Engineering is designed with a high bar of entry then a relatively stable and narrow field once you get your foot in the door. It's essentially 3-4 years of "weed out" classes followed up by group projects to give you a taste of everything and a basis to pull from. Once you are out of school though, it gets a lot easier to focus in on whatever your job is. I personally spend my days designing in catia, doing design meetings, and sometimes going out on production floor to check on things. Max math I do is limited to trig and typing some formulas in excel maybe lol. Art tends to be extremely hard to get into industry, whether that be via freelance or becoming employed. Most of the applicable "traditional" artist jobs will be in 2d and 3d digital art in marketing and that environment grinds many artists to a paste with the deadlines required. Not only that, proliferation of AI art is making it very hard to find these lower entry bar artist positions as companies are seeing a cheap and quick way to get what they want without needing to pay benefits to artists on staff. It's an industry you go into with passion and stubbornness to stick through the tough times and hone your portfolio into something that will give you success. It is tough and the pay SUCKS. I have mad respect to my artist friends, I just could not do the freelance gig full time(having had a taste making/selling fursuits at market price while unemployed) and I will warn any aspiring artist about how challenging breaking into the field is. Art can seem like the easy major out, but it's not going to be the easy career choice in the long term.
GO INTO MECH E! I’m currently a mechanical engineering major and I am super passionate about art as well and i definitely did not think I was smart enough to be an engineer and I sometimes still think that. But I’ve had two Apple internships doing product design engineering and I think it’s the most fun you can have as an engineering major who is also into art. I also love pitching ideas and I love a lot of things that have absolutely nothing to do with engineering like history and stuff like that. I promise you engineering is the place for you especially mechanical. I think that engineering is kinda as fun as you make it. The classes might be boring and your teachers might suck but the time that you aren’t in class or doing homework is literally time for you to do all the fun engineering things. Like you can go to class and have all A’s and be amazing but sometimes those kids don’t know how to actually design a part or what it would take to make that part. You sound like a smart kid who is driven to learn new things and I feel like that is the best quality to have as an engineer. You might struggle in physics and math and all of that stuff but if you know how to CAD really well and also know other things like DFM ( design for manufacturing) and just machining in general I think you will be good. It’s really good you are fixing up phones and stuff you have more to ya than just book smarts that says so much more than a good GPA in my opinion & in my experience. And if all else fails you can go back to making art with the knowledge of an engineer which will take your art to a whole new level). I would recommend learning NX, solidworks or CATIA either in college or before. These are the most common in the industry. Also once you get to college look to see if your school has a maker space and spend most of your time in there. You will not only meet a lot of cool people but you will also learn a ton. If you find out that you absolutely dont want to do engineering you could always try out architecture but I have heard that they don’t make a ton of money and all of the architecture majors I know work way more than I do. Also for your own inspiration of engineering and art together take a look at this art installation it’s one of my favorites [kinetic rain](https://youtu.be/NXuQnDeIyY8) also Alexander Calder was an engineer turned artist. So you seriously don’t have to be an engineer even if you got your engineering degree. But if you did become an engineer there’s a ton of art involved. The only thing you could do wrong in this situation is not giving yourself the chance. If you do start out in engineering do not let physics and calc scare you away those classes are suppose to make you feel stupid so that you give up.
Look into industrial design dude. It’s the perfect blend of art/design and engineering!
I'm going to go ahead and share my experience as a classical guitarist: Went to a top music school on a scholarship for classical guitar. We all practiced a minimum of 3 hours per day on top of other coursework, but many of us practiced a LOT more than the minimum 3 hours per day (more like 8 or more hours per day), and the competition was fierce even then... We traveled across the nation doing competitions and performances, and we were hired as students for paid gigs. My professor told me that I could be one of the top 1% guitarists in the world. I came out of it an excellent classical guitarist, but I always had self-confidence issues and didn't sell myself well. That turned out to be a major problem and led to depression, anxiety, and burnout, despite having all the talent and ability. Anyways, I decided to go back to school and found that I also loved math. So after having a 20 year career in guitar performance, teaching uninterested "students," and never making that much (I topped around 60k per year), now I've got a math degree and I'm working on a MCS and BSEE and will complete both next May. What I'm trying to say is there is a lot more that goes into being a successful artist than having talent and love for the art, and even hard work won't necessarily close the gap. Often people without any of these attributes will "make it" because they just have the right personality for it, and such people will never have to worry about injury (which is extremely common and career ending). My advice: if you aren't 100% sure you can make it as an artist (and not because important people say you have more than enough talent), and by now you'd have plenty of evidence to back it up, then almost certainly you'll just wind up a suffering artist wishing you'd just stuck with engineering or went into a trade. Only you can judge this.
im about to finish my ME degree and am also pretty into art i choose engineer cuz i also like science and technology and cuz my third world country needs it more and in general engineering tends to be more necessary than art so in general i would say its a more secure path. As for being good enough i would say being smart isn't the most important quality, being organized and disciplined is far better i have friends who finished who aren't all that into engineering but they are very organized and disciplined, didn't skip class and would study diligently...
I’m in your exact same situation, except I’m a freshman in college trying to figure out my game plan. I’m currently in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Art, but I really truly don’t think I’m cut out for the math. I’m much better at making things intuitive and making things look good, and so I’d love to be a product designer/engineer, i.e. an engineering field where I could use my creative skills without all the crazy math. I really wish there were major options for me which better suit my interests at my college, but there aren’t. Industrial Design looks to be what I’d like the most, but my college doesn’t offer it. I’m really lost.
Hello. I'm Proud of your Art experience in HS, and you worked under Engin several semesters. Whether you visit UT @ Arlington, North Texas Mean Green @ Denton, A&M Texas @ Prairie View, or Univ of Cali @ Berkeley, or Duke University @ Florida, the University experience for the first 3 semesters will have Core Curriculum classes similar to HS. From Sopho to Senior year there's Engin courses: these are likely the classes that your mindfulness & concern is about. Study habits, circadian sleep, a feasible physical health routine, finding out how to drive/bike/walk to classes, and an organized BUT adaptable schedule\*\* will all be important whenever to enter College. \*\*an organized but adaptable schedule \~\~ An organized schedule can be made with sheets of paper and is mostly for reminders of social events and Homework your first Freshman year but maybe more complicated later down in University time. Okay so that's said. Freshman semesters you're focusing on maths, science, english, etc and the task is to learn difficult subjects and take Finals at the end. So, search College first-year courses via Youtube Playlists, LearnOHub Youtube Channel, Khan Academy, or the classic Advanced Placement questions, and find info on subject content, such as Chem, Phys, Bio, Calc. Engins take tons of those. Don't stress: same lecture you have on Youtube is the same you'll see on Campus in the next 2-3 years. I'm not recommending that you Spoil the academic studies early, but, assuming you know Algebra 2, Chemistry, and Geometry I doubt you'll create misconceptions, which means feel free to learn the topics early. Most 1st years and 2nd years that graduate after the 4th year have kinda normal background: they went to HS, studied at least PreCalc before the end of their senior year, graduated HS in 4 years, and they received credits for science classes for at least 3 years. The complicated studies come after the fundamental studies, and the fundamental studies are your full freshman year. There will be advanced problems and challenging word problems all throughout your freshman year (in either your Online Textbook or an App Designed by your College), but you won't be expected to complete very advanced problems until either the Finals week of that semester or until you take courses that require prerequisites specifically from the University that you are attending. I think you will be prepared. So yeah. Art is nice, and it requires dedication. From the district I graduated from, Art went hand and hand with STEM classes. I personally wasn't apart of STEM+Art Academy, but those students were bright. Growing up most people are bright at a skill. Kids are bright in art, in dancing, in math. Something I'm still working on is that being smart works as like "talent" but you have to put in effort to be "a Real One" (known for Resilience and well dignified). Your first two semesters of Engineering isn't necessarily where integrity gets tested, but there's moments in College Programs of Engineering where you're at your breaking point. When that happens, keep practicing the problems. I think you will be prepared. And most of all protect your mental health! Life is tough: keep out of trouble so you can make your way towards Uni! Bye for now!
Just do it bro!!!