What is engineering, anyways? by Emiko P. '25

1. Why I didn’t think I would be a good fit for engineering.

I came to MIT certain of one thing: I would never be an engineer.

In eighth grade, everyone in my grade took a mandatory woodworking class. Even though the class was three months long, the only thing I can remember was the frustration of attempting engineering drawings. We would draw boxes and parts from three different angles – and I would always turn in my paper covered in layers of faded pencil marks as I erased and redrew, erased and redrew, over and over again. I remember taking a ruler to add measurements to my drawings, squinting and counting the lines on the ruler, messing up, then starting all over again. I was frustrated by the meticulous precision – I wanted to shred all those stupid engineering drawings and go outside and start cutting wood. 

While I did enjoy analytical things, activities involving precision didn’t come naturally to me. The cookies I baked never seem to come out tasting right and my chemistry experiments in high school would incur wild errors – and I would never know what I was doing wrong. I would try so hard to focus and pay attention and make things exact, but it just never seemed to work out. 

By the time I had to choose a major at MIT my freshman year, I had come to believe that precision and meticulousness were the defining traits of a good engineer – qualities I most certainly didn’t see in myself. I knew I didn’t fit the mold, and, to be honest, I wasn’t even interested. You can therefore understand why majoring in mechanical engineering never crossed my mind.

Until it did. 

At the end of my freshman year at MIT, I declared brain and cognitive sciences as my major for one simple reason: because it was cool, and studying something cool would make me happy. I spent that next summer in Madrid, Spain in a computational neuroscience lab. And while I had chosen that lab because it was cool – studying emotions and Alzheimer’s – I found myself feeling deeply bored and unsatisfied.

I found my mind wandering to new things – I wanted to do something that mattered, and for me, a lab project that I would only see the results of in 10 years didn’t fit the bill.

With my newly declared major suddenly scrapped, I embarked on some soul-searching and deep digging of MIT’s Course Catalog. I emerged from my search with a surprising decision, choosing to change my major to something I had ruled out since the very beginning: mechanical engineering.

2. A shift in perspective.

In my desperation to find my path forward after brain and cognitive sciences abruptly lost its magic, every option was back on the table. This time, I guided my decision-making process by asking myself what my core values are. I decided that these were creativity, collaboration, and impact. With those three things, I knew I would be happy, and I kept them in mind as I went back to the drawing board for a new major.

I had always been interested in physics, mostly because of cool space applications. The idea of black holes and dark energy and time travel all seemed so cool, and physics seemed like the lens through which I could study such fascinating topics. And I would be happy! But my time in my lab in Madrid bothered me because of impact. I wanted to do something, and the result of physics felt a little too close to brain and cognitive sciences: studying something because it was cool, not because I would be able to do anything tangible with it. And before anyone says anything, of course physics is amazing, and many people can do great things with it that will change our world forever. Perhaps understanding the physics of the world and of our brains is the most important thing we can do as humans. But I… didn’t want to do that. I needed something else.

So, what else fit the bill? Well, I turned to the idea of creativity: What about science journalism or policy? I was definitely drawn to these. Their magnetic pull was steering my hand to my computer mouse, filling out the change of major form, and guiding my imagination through a life where I was pursuing these things. And I would be happy.

But something stopped me. 

For goodness sakes, something stopped me, because that wasn’t a good enough reason anymore. Happy wasn’t good enough anymore. If I took classes because they made me happy, then I wouldn’t take anything hard. And if I didn’t take anything hard, then how the heck was I going to learn anything at all? And that scared the crap out of me – the idea of coming to MIT and not learning anything? The idea of being surrounded by brilliant minds and taking the easy road just so I could stay happy? That didn’t sound like happiness at all. In fact, the idea made me distinctly unhappy.

So, I took a look at it again: the one major I never let myself think about, because it made me unhappy – or maybe I should say uncomfortable. Mechanical engineering was uncomfortable. Deeply so, because I didn’t truly know anything about it besides that it involved precision and some sort of deep-rooted love for Legos that I wasn’t born with.

I could hear my eighth-grade self screaming, watching in horror as I started tromping down the path towards engineering drawings and precision and everything I had assumed I hated. But I had a sneaking suspicion telling me that engineering had more in store for me than that.

Because as I continued thinking about creativity, collaboration, and impact… it dawned on me that mechanical engineering had all three. Everywhere I looked within the field, engineers were working together in teams to solve novel problems and change the world. Maybe everything I was looking for was waiting for me in the mechanical engineering department. 

The idea began to grow on me. I began to imagine a world in which I graduated from MIT as a mechanical engineer. I began to imagine a world in which I chose classes and my major not because they would make me “happy” but because they would challenge me and force me to truly, deeply learn.

Before I knew it, I was talking with the academic advisor of the department, explaining my pros and cons list for why I should switch my major to mechanical engineering. I explained to her my fears – I had been certain I’d never be an engineer.

The first thing she said was: “Well, a pros and cons list is a very engineering thing to do.”

I filled out the change of major form the very next day.

3. Why it actually ended up being a good fit.

As you may have guessed, the decision to major in mechanical engineering ended up being a great one for me. Over the course of my three years as a mechanical engineering student, I have realized that the qualities of a good engineer are not only precision, math equation wizardry, and the love of things like Legos and Ikea, but other things as well. Other things that I discovered I remarkably have, such as my core values of creativity, collaboration, and impact.

Let’s start with creativity. Because my concentration within mechanical engineering is product development, I’ve gotten to create a lot of things. In most of my product development classes, you are presented with an amorphous problem that you are tasked with solving. It’s up to you what direction you want to take to solve it, and that’s something that really surprised me and began to unravel my initial impressions of engineering. Contrary to my initial impression that engineering must always be precise, I’ve encountered so much freedom in engineering. There are a million ways to solve the same problem, and your imagination and creativity is more of a superpower than your ability to measure things with a ruler.

For example, one of my first design classes required that we bring 15-foot-tall balloons to the ground. There are dozens of ways you can accomplish this task: you can pop the balloons, catch them in a net, knock them down with a tower, lasso them like Indiana Jones, or even suck all the air out of the room to create a vacuum (this idea was not approved). 

This creativity can be expressed in any project: I’ve built my own robot that had functional detachable arms, I’ve designed waterproof casings for an asthma diagnosis device, I’ve coded line-following robots, I’ve designed litter picker-uppers, I’ve gone through the product design process of building a powered mask for wildland firefighters, and the list goes on. 

And what’s even more special is that I didn’t have to do any of these projects alone. You are not expected to know how to build robots from scratch or how to code – but you are expected to collaborate and ask questions. Engineering is unique because working in teams is the norm, which makes it a very friendly and collaborative environment. Some of my favorite moments at MIT have been working with a team on a class project, brilliance sparking between us, and our idea snowballing as it becomes better and better.

Best of all, engineering allows you to solve real problems. The product we built in 2.009 is a powered respiratory system that could literally save firefighters’ lives. The product we built in D-Lab is an asthma diagnosis device that could be carried around in a backpack to rural parts of India that would otherwise not have access to respiratory tests. My summer internship two years ago was part of the race to build the world’s first commercial lunar lander. These things are real and they are epic and this is what engineering is.

4. Defining engineering.

As you can see, engineering isn’t only about building mechanical parts – it’s about artful problem-solving and working with others. It goes beyond making individual pieces, but to building systems where parts and processes work together seamlessly. It’s about building things for people that are needed and wanted. That’s the thing about mechanical engineering: it’s an organic, human-centric process.

And I’ve been talking a lot about mechanical engineering here, but these ideas apply to other disciplines of engineering like civil, biological, chemical, electrical, software, aerospace, environmental, industrial, materials, nuclear, and so on.

There are many ways you can be an engineer, and that’s why my favorite definition of engineering is: “the action of working artfully to bring something about.”

5. What this means for you.

People choose the same path for a variety of reasons. Just because you and someone else are in the same major, but have wildly different reasons for being there, doesn’t mean that you don’t belong. Engineering can be a space for you, no matter what brings you there – whether it’s a love of math and precision, imagination and design, or something beyond.

So, if you’ve decided quickly and early that you are not something or will never consider something… maybe reevaluate. Maybe see if that quick rejection is hiding something deeper – maybe you’re like me, and your hate for eighth grade woodworking and failure at baking cookies doesn’t actually mean you wouldn’t like mechanical engineering. Because maybe you don’t even know what mechanical engineering really is, and you may be missing out on the adventure of a lifetime.

A few days ago, I got some really great news. I was interviewed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers last December, and this month they featured me in an article in their monthly Mechanical Engineering Magazine about collegiate athletes studying engineering. After all the hard work and self-discovery that occurred as I pursued this major, it was honestly so exciting to share my adventure in one of the most influential mechanical engineering magazines in the world. 

And to think, I came to MIT vowing never to be an engineer. And to think, when I changed my major, I had thought with awe about the fact that in three years’ time, maybe I could become an engineer. Even though it would be hard, maybe I could do it. 

And I did it!

But more importantly, you can, too! I’m telling you this story to show you two things: 1) engineering encompasses so much more than you may think, 2) the world is your oyster, and you can do this! 

Do the hard thing, conquer the hard thing, and become an even better version of yourself in the process. And for those of you who don’t see your interests aligning with engineering at first, maybe take a second look :)