Career angst, part II

So, what sounds interesting? How about some of these or these, or maybe this or that. This would be fun... but I bet something more practical like this would be too. Ditto for this sort of thing, these, as well as these, these, these, and this.

Yeah, I want to be an engineer. Still not sure if I am willing to do what it takes to get there, as there are a ton of downsides to doing this:

• Most engineering jobs seem to require an engineering degree. Even if the work you actually do has little or nothing to what you did in class.
  
• Engineering degrees are really heavy on the requirements. A brief survey of different universities' programs shows that the math/science/engineering coursework is about 3/4 of the credits in an engineering degree, as opposed to a little over half of the credits in a math or science degree.
  
• Most engineering degree programs are geared around 20-year-olds with no outside responsibilities or lives, in that you are required to be a full-time student while in the program and tend to have extensive labs and/or group projects.
  
• ...so your classmates are mostly a bunch of 20-year-old guys.
  
• Engineering programs are not offered at many schools. The options tend to be either Huge-Ass State, Selective Tech, or Spendy Religious U.
  
• A lot of the interesting (i.e. design) jobs require at least a Master's degree — aparently a BSEE gets you a job in testing in most large companies.
  
• A lot of the interesting work is in areas that I find morally objectionable, or is funded by parties that would take the work and make it so. (Make cool robots... that kill people! Design sensor networks... that will take away everybody's privacy!)
  
• You need an internship while you're in school to get your first job in the field.
  
• Oh yeah, you're pretty much screwed if you graduate into a recession.
  
• If you do get a job in your field, it's aparently a big deal if you get one where you only work 40 hours a week.
  

So that'd be at least two years of financial free-fall (and possible mountain of debt) with a full class load of all engineering, all the time, with no guarantee of a job where I get to make stuff. Why bother?

I think — I hope — that there is something fun lurking beneath the workload, that the coolness of what I'll get to make is enough to make up for it all. So for now I'm slogging through the homework on the classes that I'm taking here and there; when the time comes to make the jump back to full time school (or not), maybe I'll have found out for sure. If it doesn't work out, there are always more jobs in tech support....

ok, that's enough angst.