This will be a bit of a venting and processing my thoughts blog...If you want a look inside of my brain and me getting real, here it is. I just need to get some of this stuff out of my head.
I've really been struggling lately with my future and what it will contain. As you probably know, I just graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Now, it's time for the next step. Well, the next step is to find a job in engineering right? Start out low and work your way up! Engineers make bank, so I picked a great major for my future, or so everyone around me tells me. But I don't know if I'm buying it.
Let's rewind. My three college summers have taught me a lot. The first two I spent as a camp counselor at Ponderosa Pines Christian Camp. Amazing camp, and best summers of my life. I LOVED meeting people, forming relationships, and being on the move 24/7. I thrived there. The next summer, or the summer before this one, I found an engineering internship in Sacramento. I needed to do it to gain experience, so I searched really hard, got hired, and did an internship. And boy, did I learn a lot!
That summer was one of the hardest of my life. Now, the company I was working at was great. Great people, great pay, great location, awesome bike ride to work every day (15 miles each way, stayed in shape!), and a good amount of variety. So why was it the hardest summer of my life? Simply this: I didn't feel like it was for me. The previous two summers, I was in my element. I felt ALIVE as a camp counselor, I was doing something I was passionate about and loved! But this last summer...I wasn't. I was trapped in a cubicle in an office building doing things I really didn't find myself very interested in. I still did my best and completed every assignment with excellence and a good attitude, so I did good on that count. But I was left with a permanent impression that engineering wasn't for me.
So all throughout this past year, I've told myself I'm wrong. I was already three years in, and there was no chance that I was going to change my major at that point. I knew that if I had done a major like communications, I would have very little in the way of job opportunities and I wouldn't have been challenged at all. (Side note: Engineering didn't challenge me that much. I don't want to brag...but others found it difficult. I would have been so bored with a 'normal' major.) I do still enjoy building and designing things, and my dream job is still to design theme park rides for Disney. But now I know who I am, and that I LOVE people and want to be around people 24/7. The cubicle life killed me last summer, (I literally counted down the weeks and days until I was done) and I never want to do that again.
But now I'm searching for a job. I've been searching for an engineering job because that's what everyone says I should be looking for. But all the passion, the drive, the enthusiasm, is manufactured for the sole purpose of obtaining the job. I've seen other people working jobs I would love, jobs that are 'low' jobs. Secretaries, servers at restaurants: I'm told I'm 'above' these jobs, and that they are fallbacks in case I cannot find a great-paying engineering job. But they interact with people all the time...and (most) engineers don't.
So I find myself at a crossroads. Option 1 is to continue applying for engineering jobs, and when I get one, work hard at it, fighting my personality and who God made me to be the whole way, holding out for the chance that God has a perfect engineering job for me somewhere along the line, and I need to endure through jobs I don't enjoy to get there. Or I could look for other jobs. But where else? Where do I start? Where do I fit? I have defined myself, or at least the career-oriented part of myself, as an engineer. If I don't have that, where do I start looking for jobs?
God, where do I go? What do I do? I seek your will for my life, and I want to make the right choice, but I don't know where to turn! I'll take a difficult job if it's your will God; I realize the road won't always be easy, and I'm willing to do another difficult job. But I will never be as at home behind a desk as I will in a Jr. Hi cabin, never as enthusiastic in a cubicle as I will in a crowd. I pray right now that you lead and guide me to the proper job, preferably something that pays well, but if not, something that pays poorly. Money is no object, and when I say that, I mean that I know You will provide me all I need, God, so there's no need to worry. Please lead me, Lord.
