At this point I’m not sure how long this journey is going to take, nor what it will mean to succeed in getting back into engineering. At the moment I know that I used to have a passion for science and engineering. Being the smart one in school was a huge part of who I was. And I was always going to come back. Since my oldest son was born, just a few weeks after I passed my exams and attained my master’s degree, I have been biding my time, dreaming of the day when I would come back to engineering. And, I guess, that day has arrived.
My youngest child just started second grade. I couldn’t come back last year, because my middle son needed me to homeschool him. He surprised us late last year by deciding to go back to public school. He was a great homeschool student and very diligent in getting his work done. He seemed to enjoy it, so we figured he would do homeschool for a few more years. But the pull of seeing his friends in school and being with them convinced him to go back.
I miss talking about interesting technical subjects. I miss learning about the physical world. I miss having friends and colleagues who know what electrons do and can think about thermodynamics and kinetics. So, here I am, with some free time, but not enough to work full time. I need to negotiate my way in. Get people to see how much I still know despite taking 17 years off, and get people to want me to work for them, even if it is only part time at first.