I am a very confused man brothers. Help me!!

Here is the thing: I want to be rich, my ultimate dream is to own a ferrari or a 911 turbo(I know it might be shallow and materialistic but I don't care I love cars). So for that I need to make some money. I could do that by doing an mba. To get into a good b-school I need to get a high gpa. So here is the problem.

I am in engineering, getting a high mark is somewhat hard for me. The first two years I mostly hated it. But now in 3rd year I finally found the love of my life, electronics. It left me open mouthed . I want to get into grad school for it. The path is fraught with difficult courses(all graduate level courses for undergrad students in analog electronics). I am afraid that even though I love it I might not be actually good at it(going by my past performances) and thus end up with low marks. So that means I can't go to grad school and if I can't I don't see the point of being an engineer(I will probably hate my job and I will be making a salary that won't help me buy my porsche or ferrari). But otoh if I do hit the jackpot and go to gradschool for engineering then I don't care about the ferrari or porsche because I will be loving what I do(I will just get the Nissan GTR , apparently it has the same performance as the 911 turbo).

And also the thing is I like the business side of things as well. Some of my friends say I am the wrong person in the wrong program, I should be in accounting or business or something like that. I think their statement has substance in it). So I don't know what to do.


So if I get a low mark(if I follow my love by taking grad level courses), no grad school and the chance of getting into a top b-school is probably low as well(the one where big firms come to hire and pay top $$). So what should I do? Take all those graduate level courses? Or play it safe and take some easy courses which will hopefully enable me to get high enough marks and GPA?

I'm in grad school for EE, I'm mediocre at math and struggle remembering concepts. But I enjoy engineering and math modeling. Most engineers are not filthy rich. They make enough to be comfortable but they work their ass off.

If you got an MBA, what would you do with it? Most engineers get MBA's to enter management after they're tired of a pure tech career. Others get it to start their own business after they're tired of engineering period. Where are you at?

And if you think you got business skills, test them out. You can always start an electronics related company to fill in a given niche. The richest people I know that are my age (who didn't have nepotism going for them) have some kind of business skill or skill with money. The richest guy I know was a college dropout but taught himself business and graphic design over the course of four months. He ended up pulling in a ridiculous amount of money. Now he's doing business brokering and makes about 25k a month and has an expensive car collection next to his Beverly Hills condo.

Also, what are your problem classes? Electromagnetics? Control? Devices?

Yo, it sounds like you would like systems or industrial engineering. These tend to focus on efficiency in industrial systems. Although there are plenty of other areas within systems engineering. Right now I am about to start my second semester of my second year in Systems and Control engineering so I'm about 3/8s of my way through the major. Although I haven't gotten into the upper level courses, I have looked ahead and like what I see. Within systems engineering at my school, there are 6 different areas you can specialize in:

1. Dynamic Systems and Control
2. Complex Systems Analysis (from the way the courses look, this would be a GREAT major if you are considering getting an MBA and going into consulting)
3. Manufacturing, Industrial Systems (My school doesn't have a seperate major for Industrial Engineering, so it has its own area within Systems)
4. Information Systems (This has to do with a lot of computer programming, I hate this stuff)
5. Signal Processing and Communications
6. Systems Biology (this is a new area that sounds great if you're Pre-Med, although I heard Biomedical Engineering is the great new major for Pre-Meds.)


On top of that, you can mix and match courses to make your own area as long as it is within reason (no humanities and no 100-level courses).

You didn't mention what type of engineering you were in, but it sounds like Electrical Engineering. I don't know exactly how far you are in your classes, but where I am in mine I could easily switch from Systems and Electrical with no problem since the classes up to this point have been the same.

I am not really in a position to give advice from experience here since I am only in my second year, but I thought I'd just give my 2 cents. If you want my suggestion on what to do department-wise, I would say definately stay with Engineering if it is what you love.

ready123 said:

I'm in grad school for EE, I'm mediocre at math and struggle remembering concepts. But I enjoy engineering and math modeling. Most engineers are not filthy rich. They make enough to be comfortable but they work their ass off.

If you got an MBA, what would you do with it? Most engineers get MBA's to enter management after they're tired of a pure tech career. Others get it to start their own business after they're tired of engineering period. Where are you at?

And if you think you got business skills, test them out. You can always start an electronics related company to fill in a given niche. The richest people I know that are my age (who didn't have nepotism going for them) have some kind of business skill or skill with money. The richest guy I know was a college dropout but taught himself business and graphic design over the course of four months. He ended up pulling in a ridiculous amount of money. Now he's doing business brokering and makes about 25k a month and has an expensive car collection next to his Beverly Hills condo.

Also, what are your problem classes? Electromagnetics? Control? Devices?

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Well with MBA I wanted to get into investment banking.

As far as starting a company is concerned, to be honest I am not a risk taker . Ya I know people who don't take any risk don't get anywhere. But I am not like that. I have to know where my next paycheck is coming from.

Well the thing is I don't really have any problem areas. I am not really bad at anything, and I am also not really good at anything either. If I work a bit, I am usually able to get in the mid70s range.

I am in 3rd year 2nd semester. So I finally decided that I am not going to take any analog electronic courses. There is hardly any future in it and I went to a couple of classes and god its tough!! So I decided I am going to concentrate in digital electronics/VLSI/computer hardware areas. Not only do I enjoy doing those but apparently they pay nice as well.

So for the time being I decided that I will just concentrate on my studies, not think about the future and enjoy what I like to do. And as far as MBA is concerned, well I will see. I am just gonna take it semester at a time. So for this semester I took Dynamic Systems and Control, Communication System, VLSI(we are going to design and layout an old AMD processor ) and this mandatory course on engineering economics. Last semester I had Digital Electronics, Introduction to Electronic Devices, Probability and Random Process, Energy Conversion(ghey course, got my gpa down )

Thanks for the help guys! Now I have an idea what I want to do.

Just wanted to point out that investment banking is a more competitive profession than engineering and is a long road as well. Especially if you want to work at one of the top firms and hope to be partner someday, which is where the $$$ reputation comes from. Even then you're still required to pay dues working as a junior analyst for 2 years BEFORE going back to business school for an MBA. The hours you work and the perfection expected are pretty brutal. I've heard stories of guys in their 30's getting heart attacks from the stress.

You sound like you enjoy digital electronics but need to get your feet wet a little more. There are lot of paths you can take in electronics/electrical engineering. All the courses you're taking right now except for VLSI are basic EE courses and will form the foundation of senior and graduate level coursework. Stay sharp