Becoming an engineer was my lifelong dream. I loved being innovative and creative. I wanted to build machinery and gadgets that could meet everyday needs. As a child, we made toys from paper and sometimes added an electrical function to make them move, spin, or fly. Each time any of these gadgets were created, I looked at myself with some level of satisfaction and the little me imagined a future where I would be part of the leading engineers who made something new or redesigned something that already existed. It was for this reason I joined the science class.
Unfortunately, this dream never lived to see the light of day. While I felt being an engineer would change my life, my parents and a few family friends didn't see it that way. The word "engineering" sounded to them more like a mechanic. With laughter, one of my family friends told me I'd end up becoming a generator repairer if that's the field I wanted to go into and gave me examples of a few friends he knew. My family believed him and painted a picture of a man soaked in engine oil and diesel. For my dad, who seemed to love the idea, wasn't ready to sponsor the fee, and that's how the dream died.
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I was naive at that time, just 17 years of age. Unfortunately, I couldn't fight back, and I stayed, not knowing what profession to go into. Until finally I decided to go into the medical field—a profession I never dreamed of.
Now I see engineers at their place of work and I see myself in them. Fascinated by building and fixing things, I wanted to become just like them, to either make something new or fix what was broken in a gadget that already existed. I wanted to speak the language of machines (not the binaries found in computer programming, unless it was required in the process of building), I wanted to be a contributor in the field of gadgets, nuts, and engines; however, that longing never came to pass.
Sometimes I look at my current age and I know it's too late to enroll in engineering school. But if there were still a chance to turn back the hands of time, I would have loved to become an engineer, specifically a mechanical engineer. A man who doesn't mind taking all the dirt and soaking himself with engine oil and grease. If wishes were roses, I would become a man whom machines answer to.