I’m not so sure I was thinking much about careers in 9th or 10th grade, but I certainly knew that I wanted to look into engineering by 11th. When I was younger, I thought law might be an option, but I didn’t have great public speaking skills and didn’t really relish the idea of extra years of school and grueling tests memorizing cases and cases.
I was good in everything, but had more affinity for math and science. I figured studying electrical engineering would be a good way to work with computers and neat stuff like that, plus I knew it was a field that could pay well.
I think it goes back to a physics experiment in 10th or 11th grade. We had to time a ball rolling down an incline, compute its speed and then determine the correct position to place a cup. So after the ball rolled down the incline and off the table, it would land right in the cup.
It was like a lightbulb went off. “This stuff is actually useful in the real world!”
And that’s what engineers do, they use math and science to do useful things. And engineering programming (controls) is when you tell things how to behave. It’s a power rush to know your thoughts are being put into action to make otherwise inert lumps of matter perform as intended.
of course you were ; )