{"id":8658,"date":"2022-04-19T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/?p=8658"},"modified":"2026-04-10T14:47:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:47:23","slug":"why-engineering-worked-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/why-engineering-worked-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Engineering Worked for Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Major College Thoughts<\/strong><\/h2>

As a first-generation college student, <\/span>choosing my major would prove to be the most daunting task of beginning college, and much harder than just selecting the college that cost the least after the scholarship I qualified for was factored in. This boiled down to more about what I liked and thought could make a successful career for me in the future. After looking internally at myself, I didn\u2019t know what I liked outside of football, and I was most certainly not going to be a professional or even college athlete. Instead, I was going to have to look at what I liked, and also what meant a lot to me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Things like:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 Job security<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 The ability to take care of my family<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 Do I have to work alone or am I alright in a group setting?<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 Do I need recognition from my employer?<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 Do I want someday to be able to climb the company ladder or am I alright being on the lower end of the work ladder?<\/span><\/p>

\u2022 Do I have the characteristics to do this career or would it be a disservice to those in the field already?<\/span><\/p>

All of these things and more are what you must consider when looking at all of the choices for majors at SAU, and eventually, your career choice.<\/span><\/p>

Choices to be Made<\/strong><\/h2>

I spent a lot of time introspecting during my senior year of high school, thinking about the criteria I mentioned. I decided what mattered enough to me to make a significant effect on my career and major choice were job security, financial security, and making sure I didn\u2019t go somewhere that my character wouldn\u2019t allow me to succeed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

One thing I considered was being a football coach and teacher, which would lead me to dive into kinesiology and education. I, however, didn\u2019t think I would have the patience to be a teacher and didn\u2019t have a passion for the teaching side of that. If I had chosen to do that, I would be doing a disservice to other teachers by lowering the standard that teachers should be held to, as well as the image of teachers to students and the outside world.<\/span><\/p>

Another alternative to me was skipping college and choosing to become a welder, but I also knew that I would prefer to not have to work so many hours per week in the future when I had a family; it\u2019s also a very volatile job market, as many welding jobs are constantly experiencing layoffs and cutbacks.<\/span><\/p>

More Questions than Before<\/strong><\/h2>

After considering the options that I liked on the surface and coming to terms with the goals that I had for my career, I wasn\u2019t anywhere closer to deciding on a major. The reason that I wasn\u2019t any closer was that I wasn\u2019t looking deep enough or doing my due diligence about choosing my major. I was simply looking at the surface of the major and career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

For instance, I had no idea what an engineer was, but all I would say was, \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s what I wanna do when asked about that.\u201d I was not giving myself the best chance to succeed by relying on my own intuition with no research into the fields. After a serious talk with one of my favorite teachers in high school, I realized what an engineer actually was, and saw that the career fit exactly what I wanted. There\u2019s always a need for engineers and is, at least at the time of my graduating high school, one of the highest average paying careers for only needing a bachelor\u2019s degree.<\/span><\/p>

Decision Time<\/strong><\/h2>

Overall, selecting my major was much more of an internal look at myself, and it\u2019s a hard thing to do at seventeen or eighteen years old. It\u2019s taking a real look at yourself and being completely honest because you are the only person who can make these kinds of choices for yourself. The good thing about making the choice at seventeen or eighteen years old is that you\u2019re still so young that it can change and not set you back in life. If you get to college and decide that you didn\u2019t know what you wanted or how you wanted your life to go, then it\u2019s the absolute right time to correct that. Take the time and look at yourself again, a little bit harder this time, and decide on what you want. Then do the research to see what kind of career fits those goals and what major that ties to.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAllen Dudley\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Hello! I am Allen Dudley. I am currently serving a year-long fellowship with Americorps VISTA+SAU in Southern Arkansas University\u2019s Career Services office. This summer, 2022, I will be graduating with my Bachelor\u2019s of Science in Engineering, from SAU as well. I am considering re-signing for another year of service with Americorps VISTA+SAU after this term is up, or immediately pursuing a career in either Ministry or Engineering. I have loved my time at SAU, from my fellow students, professors, supervisors I\u2019ve had, and the opportunities it\u2019s given me!<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Major College Thoughts As a first-generation college student, choosing my major would prove to be the most daunting task of beginning college, and much harder than just selecting the college that cost the least after the scholarship I qualified for was factored in. This boiled down to more about what I liked and thought could… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1308,"featured_media":8671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[29425],"tags":[28830],"class_list":{"0":"post-8658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"tag-major","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 08:26:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11781,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8658\/revisions\/11781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.saumag.edu\/career-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}