This is What Engineering Did to Me

I think this is a very unfair title.
Engineering did not do anything asides what I allowed it.
Everything that happened as a result of engineering was done with my permission- either spoken or unspoken.
So, it’ll only be fair to rename this article; “The things I allowed Engineering do to me”.

My first love was law, but in hindsight, I don’t think I’d have studied law. A communications course maybe, but definitely not law.
But these are the things I would never know, because I never pursued the fruition of these dreams.
Engineering was suggested to me, and I agreed to it.
A decision I have come to regret more often than naught in the past 3 years.

I screamed at my mom today that I detest engineering with every fibre of my being.
But that’s not entirely true because, what I detest is not the engineering itself but the things that I have been powerless to change in its course.
Engineering has made me question my intelligence and I began to doubt that I could ever have been considered one of the smarter ones at a phase of my life.
And being a self acclaimed pragmatic, this brought doubts regarding not only my intelligence but everything connected to it.

Engineering started well for me; I was in the top 5% of my class who made a first class. Now, I am one of the few who are on a very comfortable second class (the irony)and it took me 2 years to come to terms with it. 2 painful years filled with intense tears and battles with my mental health (I wrote about this previously).

This is the part where I am supposed to tell you that I realized during this period that I got my validation from my academic achievements and the moment my grades began to drop, I began to see myself as somehow less of the person that I was when my grades were high.
Of course, this had dire consequences on all my relationships- except with Tochi, and sometimes, Esther.
I was confused.
This is also the part where I tell you how my family began to regret having enough faith in me to send me off to private university.
I should also tell you that I regretted it as well and it began to influence my relationship with them direly.
There wasn’t really anyone to talk to- except Tochi.
This is also where I should tell you that I needed an avenue to pour out all these frustrations. My pillow did the job, easily.

In school, I was distracted, but not by anything external. The battles in my mind on my incompetence affected my concentration, understanding and assimilation in classes. I’d see coursework as lost battles before even commencing them and I hated motivational speakers.

Occasionally when I allow my mind go down the wide road of “what if”, like the past few days, I have deep regrets. And on other days, when I allow myself live solely in the moment, I am deeply grateful for the process that has birthed me; a 20 year old child who knows that her worth is not measured by things that fade in value. Who sometimes doubts that she is as intelligent as the whole world thinks but is secure in the knowledge that she is intelligent still.
On the days I allow myself reminisce on the road to today, I think of the things that could have been better and almost forget to live in the now. I also remember the character builders and breakers and I’m uncertain how to feel about them.

Now, I’m mostly happy and I’m allowing myself flirt with the idea that maybe, just maybe, studying engineering was not a mistake after all and I might be in the right place and with time the vision will unravel to reveal something surreal.

While I wait, I’ll leave in the moment and let go of every regret.