This is probably a ramble, but I thought that I'd bring it up.  I love thinking that I'm an engineer.  I got my BS is Mechanical Engineering, however, I've never really worked as an engineer.  In my first contract job I was told that if I really wanted to stay around I should learn to do LabView programming because that is what they really needed.  So I downloaded LabView took it home over the weekend and ran through the tutorials came back to work that Monday and hooked up to a thermocouple and WahLah I was a LabView programmer.  That 6 month contract streached to 10 years and eventually became a full time position.  I didn't stay a LabView programmer, which I wish I was, but I did become a very good process control programmer.  I consider it serendipitous the way my career unfolded even though I'm not really an engineer anymore.  Sometimes people will call me a software engineer, but I know that that's not really what I am.  I'm just a programmer, who loves to make the computer do things I want it to do.

Anyway I don't know if my personality was such that I was destined to be an engineer, or that my education has shaped me to be an engineer, but I love to make things work.  The really cool thing is that people are willing to pay me to do this.

I'm just wondering how others feel about engineering or being an engineer.

As a corallary I'm a member of a few groups here that are farily active, but this group is not.  It's actually pretty enjoyable to participate in those groups.  I think that it would be nice for this group to be more active but it seems like it takes someone, or someones, that work to make it more active.  Would anyone else like this group to be more active? 

The trouble with this group is that we're all probably like me where our jobs, or schooling, is such that we just don't have a lot of spare time.  I will not ever play another game that has a 1 day move time.  I did that once thinking that since I have a premium membership I would be put on vacation if I couldn't get to the game.  However, I found out that if that happens two or more times (I'm not sure how many times it has to happen, or if it is dependent on the game) you will lose the game, but sometimes I just don't have time to get to the computer to play a few moves everyday.  But if some of us wanted to use this site as a place where we came to when we came to chess.com we could make this a more active group.

Very nice post. I am an Electrical Engineer that went into the Navy after my schooling (which is only fair since they paid for the majority of it). While in the Navy, I had very little opportunity to use my degree. When I got out eight years later, I ended up at a Control Systems Integrator company writing proposals and doiong other pre-sales activities. One of the best things about this job was I got training in all sorts of control systems hardware and software (the thought process was that if I was going to quote it, I had to have some idea how it was programmed and implemented). This led to me getting a job as a programmer as well, programming PLCs and HMIs, which is mostly Allen Bradley and Wonderware. And while I am mostly a programmer, I still consider myself an engineer, just more of a Control Systems Engineer. I have ended up working for a City in that role and find that I am now getting more back into the electrical world doing some panel design and such.

I would have to say that I love what I do. My absolute favorite thing is troubleshooting a problem. That feeling of accomplishment of getting something working again is awesome!

Thanks SanDiegoDreaming.  I programmed PLCs and used iFIX for the HMI.  I had a few older systems that were on WonderWare, but all I did with those was replace them.

"... we just don't have a lot of spare time." Yes, swordoflaban wrote all true. Who's in love with his work, that she even dreams.

What about the revitalization of our group? I do not know ... We're all so selfish (in a good sense of the word). Earlier, when I worked, I would not support this good idea.

But now I'm just doing what I play chess and watch "Discovery Science". If the team would meet, I will support it with my weak forces.    :)