It hasn't hit me yet.

It hasn't hit me that within a couple weeks, I'm done with this course and I am going to be finished with University until, hopefully, the later half of my twenties. During my final semester, I have been a TA for a Freshman level class where I've met some bright and motivated students who all ask me similar questions regarding the ECE journey as if I am some beholder of secrets that will grant them the cheat codes to breezing through this major and college life. "What does the next semester look like?", "Why does this course even matter?", "Do we ever use this stuff?". The most common question has been: "Does it get easier?". So in my final weeks of my ECE journey, I will discuss these type of questions, writing to the program I am in through the perspective of the type of underclassman who once went into office hours and asking for guidance. I write as someone who was in your shoes- as someone who asked the same exact questions. Therefore I write:

Dear ECE,



You never got easier- you only got more challenging. Yes, things eased up after Junior year when you got to pick classes, but it was already too late. The damage was done, and I "took the L". I was once a Freshman who barely survived high school only on the glimmer of hope that College would be easier and enjoyable. I had heard that college was 'the best four years of your life', where you barely had obligations for classes and were overwhelmed with free time filled to the brim with crazy activities with friends as though your education wasn't the main purpose of going to College in the first place. What I quickly learned was that when you were 17 years old, you were asked to pick a major which would drastically shape your college life for four years. What I didn't know while making that decision was that most STEM degrees require large time commitments, making that fantasy of college life just that.

ECE… you made me cry, you made me proud of myself, you made me angry, you made me happy, you made me anxious, you gave me great friends and bad project partners, you gave me long nights in the library, long nights in the lab- you made me feel all sorts of things. But you mostly made me frustrated- and this frustration lead to perspective and growth. I was frustrated because I felt as though I was fighting a system. In order to earn the grades and to understand the content (that I would immediately forget weeks after the course), I had to sacrifice a lot of time and energy, making it very difficult to balance school with my health and social life. Often times, the latter two would be confiscated for the sake of getting through the course load. My goal in my courses quickly went from aspiring for stellar grades, to just getting the shit done. The courses felt impossibly difficult just for the sake of being hard, taught by professors who couldn't care less about their students or the class they were teaching- occupied by their research. The first three semesters of my college experience, I had no social life whatsoever. Nearly every second was spent doing work for my courses, drawing on motivational videos from Navy Seals blasting through my ears to get through it all. Overtime, I broke down and burnt out… hard. I put my all into something and for what? For a number that's a bullet point on a sheet of paper that I give to a company so they can decide whether they want to talk to me or not? At the expense of my physical and emotional wellbeing? I soon realized that no, no its not.

(I know this seems like complaining, but this is going somewhere, I promise)



Through your courses, ECE, I learned that I didn't want to do that type of work for the rest of my life. Staring at code for hours on end, throwing the kitchen sink at the screen trying to get my code to compile was not something I was interested in pursuing after graduation. You forced me to sit down and think what I wanted to do with my life. My Sophomore year, I was matched with an alum who was a Sales Engineer and he discussed with me the responsiblities of the of the role- one in which business and engineering were combined. The main part of the job was understanding people and technology rather than fixing bugs for a living. At first, I thought no way- no way I could go into SALES, envisioning Matilda's sleazebag car salesman Dad. But as time passed, I realized that the most rewarding experience during my time in the program was the friends I made and how we taught each other the material or collaborated on projects. I loved explaining things during tutoring and office hours. I realized that this was my calling but when other people asked me what I was interested in, other students scrunched up their nose at me, others tell me that I was no longer an engineer (as though it were a label we all had earned) and I had Professors laugh in my face. Through this, I learned to be me, that it didn't matter what other people thought of my career leap, it only mattered what I thought of myself.

ECE you never let up. Why? What was it all for? Was it worth it? As a Senior, after doing it all, I can tell you that its hard on purpose. You're meant to endure and overcome such insurmountable challenges to learn that they weren't impossible to begin with. In four years, a program is assigned with taking 18 year old kids who have little background in the field and transform them into engineers who build applications and devices that our society is built upon. Would you want an Engineer building your car who barely grasps fundamental concepts on the subject? Would you don't want a dentist working on your mouth who doesn't understand the chemicals that they are using? The program is a monumental task and it's hard because they need to mold your brain into something new: a brain which can pick up technical concepts quickly. You aren't taught the subjects because you have to learn how to teach yourself. You're forced to understand how YOU best learn and how you can get through road blocks and hurdles. It's quite the metaphor for life. You're learning that you can get through anything you set your mind to. Never learned to play chess before but want to start? God damn, it will be hard at first, but so was circuits and after some practice, you got pretty good at them.

But most of all, through ECE, you are unlocking things that you would never be able to unlock elsewhere (sort of). If you decided to major in Business, yeah you could try to learn about computers in your free time, but you would never be able to design computer systems all the way down to the chip and build any device that pops into your head. Just like how I can learn the fundamentals of basketball but there is no way I could get into the NBA just by practicing in my free time. Through this program, you can build anything you can imagine, and isn't that cool?! You've learned how to research things and understand the tools that you find and how to put them all together. You want to build an app that tells you how many times you've opened the fridge today? You can automatically think of each individual step that would go into that project within a few seconds.

ECE, I despised you for a long time and mostly because I felt as though this was a one way relationship, one where I was dedicating so much just to get by and you never stopped giving me challenges. But through it all, thank you. Thank you for showing me that I can do it. I can do anything I set my mind to. Thank you for showing me that life is one huge balancing act where you're never going to get it right. Thank you for giving me memories of enormous belly laughs with great friends in the lab and working my tail for a grade. Thank you for showing me a passion for giving back and helping others and I wish I could do more. I wish I could do it all again and make the most of it- soak in every last memory no matter how good or bad it was.

So does it get easier? Not until you're an upperclassman, but its worth it. You'll be forced to learn so much about yourself and grow into such an amazing person you never knew you could become. Trust the process and remember, being a B+ student who is developing meaningful connection to friends and taking care of their body is a happier person who is an A student who has no friends and is barely functioning mentally.

Also ECE, please shower. Don't be this guy:



Beloved,
Cole