Pi vs Three: Reconciling Engineering and Science

I'll preface this for those unaware by saying I'm studying aerospace engineering. Through a tumultuous month in the summer, I forwent my years-long dream of studying astrophysics and, lured by the smell of kerosene and the warmth of a rocket engine, changed trajectory to a university I originally held as my last backup. Despite the crippling pain from realising the lack of holidays compared to my friends, I've grown to love the field, and hey, getting to (well, perhaps not yet) call myself a rocket scientist is a neat bonus.

With that said, those sun-soaked weeks of burdened mind, oscillating decision to decision on an hourly basis and flipping coins in potato fields (which ironically probably helped me more than my internal conversation ever did) would prove to be far from the last of its kind. I don't think the conflict ever will truly resolve but I also don't necessarily consider it a negative.

Now I'm on the path to becoming an engineer. The heroes of the STEM world, they raise buildings to the skies and rockets even further, they're the great inventors of today. A blank sheet with a problem is transformed with articulate mathematical methods and skilful approximations to a tangible, practical solution; I imagine the pride in seeing a plane you had a part in designing taking off is incredible. Engineering is employable and impressive: for reasons I can't discern, many people seem far more impressed by the title of an aerospace engineer than that of, say, a physicist. Certainly, by combining knowledge from physics all the way through economics, engineers devote their work to improving the lives of us all, and that's not the worst goal to work towards in life.

It's then both fantastic and annoying, then, that every degree has positives and negatives. I don't know whether it's more heartbreaking to focus on the inevitable faults or the benefits, but there just always seems to be something that, in a completely different and incompatible way, enthrals you just as much as what you're currently devoting yourself to.  Enter science (for me, at least). There's a sense of purity in my eyes to physics and maths, one that dirty, approximating, applicational engineering could never compare to. Indeed when a close friend is asked about her maths degree and she gets to say she "enjoys the more theoretical studies" I want to interject with: "oh, but engineering has plenty of theory! And you can specialise and do research and be a professor researching just like a scientist would!". Yet does this pertain? I must admit I'm far too inexperienced to know, but I suspect there's a clear difference between the mindset of engineering and science, even if the methods are similar.

Next to the engineers, the scientists are the minds behind their theory. They seek the truths of the world, delving deeper than the tangible physical problems of the current world. Scientists make history from behind deep books hidden in romantically intricate old libraries. There's a difference between using maths in engineering and truly "doing maths" and as I'm reminded in my calculus lectures,  theoretical problems even without directly implied applicability to life do please me greatly.

On a slight historical note, notable engineers are also often notable scientists: when working with insufficient theories of the world, you might have to develop your own to continue tinkering on the flying machine you were trying to develop. Even today there's plenty of room to change course (or so I tell myself): a scientist can go towards technology and applied science, and engineer become a researcher churning out academic papers on material properties or flow characteristics. STEM is a unified category for a reason.

The idealistic views of the two sides may highlight my naïveté, but both engineering and science truly are subjects that bring me joy (hey, I wouldn't be writing this otherwise). I'm lucky in that I have time: time to become a researcher in propulsion, time to decide to focus on manufacturing instead, time to quit my degree and live as an artist in Paris (unlikely but I must admit I've considered it, perhaps a discussion for another time). I'll let my love for physics and maths, curiosity and most importantly, thirst for knowledge, guide me for this moment.

I'll still probably feel a tinge of jealous admiration when talking to a mathematician or astrophysicist, but I'll also proudly declare myself (well, soon enough) an aerospace engineer. Whatever the title or course, the Venn diagram overlap of the principles of engineering and science is where I happily reside.