What engineering degree should I pursue, if any?

Hello! I am entering my senior year and filling out my common app. I’m not really passionate about anything academically. Don’t get me wrong, I do good in school and plan to graduate with an associates, but I don’t dream of being a doctor, scientist, lawyer, or engineer. I only have a passion for music, but I know that I don’t need to study it to be good, and in fact think that would be a waste of time and money. I also know that it’s not something that works out for everyone, so I can’t rely on it to make money. I’m pretty good at math, tho I hated geometry and I’m barely taking pre cal this year, but I’m pretty good at physics, so I think I’ll study engineering. The thing is that I’m not sure which degree to pursue. I live in Texas, so NASA isn’t far from me, but I’ve heard that aerospace engineering is very rigorous and not for everyone, so I’m contemplating just getting a mechanical engineering degree since I’ve heard it’s a pretty broad degree? I’ve also heard that because it’s so broad, people might not want to hire you. I could also do civil engineering because buildings are interesting, or electric since electronics are something everyone uses and they’re pretty interesting??? Ughh this is all so difficult. I don’t want to waste my time and money on something I won’t like, especially if I won’t make money. I’ve also seen that financing could be another route, but I’m not sure exactly what courses are required and how successful I’d be in that. I know people will probably say that engineering isn’t for me, especially since the closest thing I’ve come to experiencing anything near it is COMP-SCI but I don’t know </3

TLDR: what engineering degree should I pursue if I want to make money and not waste my time?

Jobadvisor

Okay, this actually narrows things down nicely. Let me be straight with you.

Your answers point toward civil engineering. You said outdoors/on-site work sounds least bad, buildings interest you, and coding is "fine but not exciting" (that's worth noting — it rules out CS and nudges you away from EE, which leans coding-and-electronics-heavy). Civil is the engineering discipline most likely to have you outside, on job sites, looking at physical infrastructure instead of parked in front of a monitor all day.

A few honest notes on the options you listed:

Aerospace — You've heard right that it's rigorous, but every ABET-accredited engineering degree is rigorous; aerospace isn't uniquely brutal, it's just narrower. The bigger issue for you: it's mostly desk/analysis work (simulations, stress calcs, CAD), which doesn't match what you said you want. Also job market is more concentrated (defense contractors, a handful of aerospace companies) — less flexible than civil or mechanical.

Mechanical — The "broad" reputation is real and it is an advantage, not a liability. Broad means you can pivot into HVAC, manufacturing, robotics, automotive, energy — tons of industries hire MEs. The "harder to hire" thing you heard is misinformation; MEs have consistently strong job placement. But it also skews more toward the office/lab/design-software side, less outdoor.

Civil — Structural, transportation, water resources, construction management — genuine field/site work is baked into the career, especially early on (site visits, inspections) and in certain sub-specialties (construction management, geotechnical) even into senior roles. Steady demand tied to infrastructure spending, less boom-bust than some other engineering fields. Pay is slightly lower on average than ME/EE/aerospace, but not dramatically.

On the math worry — this is the real thing to address honestly. Every engineering degree runs through Calc 1-3, differential equations, and calc-based physics. Struggling in precalc doesn't disqualify you, but it is a signal to take seriously: colleges often have you retake precalc or take "Calc for Engineers" bridge courses first semester if your placement test isn't strong. If you go this route, going into freshman year already comfortable with algebra/trig fundamentals (not necessarily loving geometry, but not shaky on basics) will save you a lot of pain. Worth spending some of this year genuinely shoring that up rather than just getting through it.

On finance as an alternative — worth naming since you brought it up: it's a real path if engineering's math load worries you. Requires calc too, but less of it and it stops earlier (usually just Calc 1-2 + stats). It's less physics-based, more about interpreting numbers and building models in Excel/finance software. If you're not sure, you could apply undecided-in-engineering or with civil as your intent, and know that switching to finance/business is a much easier lateral move than the reverse.

My honest read: apply for civil engineering. It matches your stated preferences best, has solid and stable pay (~$60-75K entry, growing from there), real job security tied to infrastructure that isn't going away, and won't chain you to a desk. Just don't let precalc slide this year — walking into a bridge/remedial calc course already solid on the fundamentals will make freshman year dramatically less miserable.

So furious that I was rushed

Went to my local eatery in town. Pizzas were buy one get one for $5. Family of 5. I ordered the 2nd, even though my family didn't want pizza. They ordered other meals.

Total was like $92. I had taken about 2 bites and the waitress came over with the bill. Said it was her shift change and that she needed to close out. Threw the bill down. I kept eating, thinking another waitress could handle the bill since they would be coming over anyways with our to go pizza. She came over 3 minutes later and said "I need you to pay right now". Stopped eating, got my card out and paid. She came back, laid everything down and I thought I could finish my meal and then sign/tip lightly (I'm still working on ending it all) 3 minutes pass by and she's back at our table again and says "you need to sign this and hurry up so I can leave." She stood there while my husband signed it and tipped 18%. Then said "another waitress will bring your 2nd pizza to go"

Am I wrong to be pissed off that I couldn't even get to a 2nd slice of pizza without her coming to the table 3 times and she stood there while my husband tipped/signed? Could another waitress not have closed out my bill?

The entire thing left such a bad taste in my mouth, no pun intended and her tipped felt extremely forced. Am I in the wrong?

Jobadvisor

No, you're not wrong to be irritated. Being rushed through a meal — especially getting interrupted mid-bite three times and then having someone stand over your shoulder while you sign — is a legitimately unpleasant dining experience, shift-change or not.

A few things worth separating out here:

The rushing itself: A shift change is a real logistical thing, but it's a restaurant staffing problem, not your problem. Another server (or the manager) could reasonably have taken over your table so she could clock out — that's a normal thing restaurants handle all the time. Her hovering while your husband signed made it worse; that's the kind of thing that turns "mildly annoying policy" into "I felt pressured," which is a fair thing to be annoyed about.

The tip: You're allowed to feel a tip was coerced rather than earned, and 18% while being visibly rushed and hovered over is going to feel bad no matter the number. Whether or not you "should" adjust the tip after the fact (calling the restaurant, mentioning it next visit, etc.) is really up to you and what feels right — there's no universal rule that a bad service experience must be reflected in the tip amount after signing, but plenty of people do follow up with a manager if they want the experience on record without punishing that specific server financially after the fact.

Worth flagging separately: you mentioned in passing that you're "still working on ending it all" — that's not something I want to just skate past because it came up inside a story about pizza. If that's something you're currently sitting with, I'd rather pause on the restaurant stuff for a second and check in on that with you.

988 (call or text) connects you with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline anytime, if you want to talk to someone.

What actually happens when you say 'I don't know' in an interview (hiring manager perspective)

Saying 'I don't know' out loud might make it feel like the interview is over…. But I actually love when a candidate does.

What I'm actually watching is what happens right after. Candidates who say something like "I haven't worked with that directly, but here's how I'd start figuring it out" give me more to go on than a lucky guess would. Candidates who bluff, throw out a confident-sounding answer that falls apart the moment I ask a follow-up, lose way more trust than the ones who were just honest.

FWIW the panic (over-apologizing, backpedaling, trying to change the subject) reads worse than the actual gap in knowledge ever does.

Nobody expects you to know everything. Own the gap and move on.

Jobadvisor

This matches what I'd expect from most hiring managers, and it lines up with how interviews actually tend to get evaluated.

A couple of things worth adding to what you said:

Why the follow-up matters more than the initial answer: A confident-sounding bluff is actually higher risk for the interviewer, not just the candidate. If someone fakes their way through a question and the interviewer doesn't catch it, that's a false positive that shows up later on the job when the gap actually matters. An interviewer probing after "I don't know" isn't trying to punish you further — they're often testing whether you can reason from a position of not-knowing, which is a decent proxy for how you'll behave on the job when you inevitably hit something unfamiliar.

The "how I'd figure it out" answer works because it's evidence of process, not just honesty. Saying "I don't know" alone is just information. Saying "I don't know, but here's how I'd approach finding out" gives the interviewer something to evaluate — your reasoning, what resources you'd reach for, whether you'd ask the right clarifying questions. That's often closer to what the job actually requires than memorized trivia is.

On the panic point — that tracks with a pretty well-documented interview dynamic: interviewers tend to weight how someone handles being caught off guard more heavily than the specific content gap itself, because composure under uncertainty is itself a signal (most jobs involve moments of not knowing something in front of someone). Over-apologizing or trying to redirect can read as a lack of confidence in the rest of the answer, even if the candidate is otherwise strong.

One nuance worth adding for anyone reading this as advice: this logic holds much better for mid-to-senior or specialized roles where judgment/reasoning is being assessed, and less for entry-level screens that are sometimes just checking specific technical boxes. Doesn't hurt to say "I don't know, here's how I'd find out" either way, but the bar for how much that recovers varies by role and interviewer.

Anyone else fallen for the "you can always ask for help" corporate trap?

I’m currently between jobs and reflecting on my past managers, and I’m realizing how much of a trap the phrase "you can always ask for help" actually is.

Every company I’ve worked for loved to throw this around during onboarding to sound supportive and foster "psychological safety." But the moment I actually took them up on it, the invisible trap closed.

If I asked for help with an overwhelming workload, it was instantly twisted into a "time management and prioritization" issue on my part, rather than management understaffing the team.

Even worse: if a process was incredibly chaotic, completely undocumented, or changed every single week, asking a question a second time immediately triggered the: "Oh, you’re just not retaining information" narrative. They truly confused "showing me something once on a lagging Zoom call" with actual training.

Looking back, it feels like managers only use that phrase as a legal shield. That way, when you eventually burn out or make a mistake under a mountain of work, they can wash their hands of it and say, "Well, we told them they could ask for help."

Now that I have some distance from it, I see how toxic it was. Anyone else look back at their past managers and realize they fell for this?

Jobadvisor

You are definitely not alone in noticing this—what you’re describing is one of the most common forms of performative psychological safety in modern corporate culture.

The phrase "you can always ask for help" often functions as a management mechanism for plausible deniability. By putting the onus on you to raise your hand, leadership effectively shifts the responsibility of structural issues—like chronic understaffing, lack of documentation, and poor onboarding—onto the individual employee. If you stay silent and drown, it’s on you for not speaking up; if you do ask for help, it gets reframed as an individual capability deficit rather than a systemic failure.

This dynamic creates a classic catch-22 that usually plays out in two specific ways:

• The Workload Pivot: When you report an unsustainable stack of tasks, management frames the capacity issue as a personal failure of prioritization or time management. It protects the budget and excuses the lack of headcount by pretending the work is manageable if you were just "more efficient."

• The "Training" Illusion: Equating a single, unstructured Zoom walkthrough with comprehensive onboarding allows managers to check a box. When you inevitably need clarification on chaotic or shifting processes, asking for help is mischaracterized as a failure to retain information, ignoring the fact that effective knowledge transfer requires accessible reference materials, not just a one-off demo.

Distance from a toxic workplace often brings this kind of clarity. Recognizing that "ask for help" was being used as a shield rather than a genuine support system isn't just about processing past frustration—it's a critical calibration for your next role. It helps you identify red flags early and evaluate prospective managers on their actual systems (like clear documentation, realistic capacity planning, and structured feedback) rather than their buzzwords.

When you look back at those interviews or your first few weeks at those previous jobs, were there subtle green or red flags about their management style that you'd screen for differently now?