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Footloose and fancy free

Name:	Ray Depew
Date Posted:	Jul 11, 2007
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I'm tired of teaching. I want to be an engineer again.

Well, it's not that I'm tired of teaching. I love being a teacher. I love seeing kids' faces light up when they finally "get it," and I love spending the day with 90 twelve-year-old kids and getting to know them. But I spend every night after school grading today's papers and preparing tomorrow's lesson plans, and I go to bed late and have to be in place with a smile the next day, and you know what? They don't pay me nearly enough for all my effort and pain. I'm working way too hard for the pittance they're giving me.

So, now that the economy has turned around and engineers are getting rehired instead of laid off, I want to be an engineer again.

I quit. Hire me.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	10/30/07 - Back in the saddle again 07/11/07 - Footloose and fancy free 06/14/06 - School's out for summer! 03/02/05 - Plan for Ray Depew 01/20/05 - Plan for Ray Depew 08/13/04 - Plan for Ray Depew

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Ray Depew (Jul 11, 2007 at 02:53 GMT)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, like most other teachers, I had to get a summer job to supplement my teaching income. It's a dream job: I'm an intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, earning engineer's wages for doing engineer's work.

That's what made me realize I'd rather be an engineer than a teacher.

Phil Carlisle (Jul 11, 2007 at 09:12 GMT)

Hehehe.. Nice plan Ray! I feel your pain there :)

There *are* good teaching jobs too though! :)

Become a lecturer man, its like teaching, but not. Mind you, from what I can tell you americans work much harder than most of us euro's anyway. So pehaps lecturing there isnt great either.

Andy Hawkins (Jul 11, 2007 at 14:07 GMT)

I'm an engineer (software) who wants to be a teacher - sigh... it swings in roundabouts I guess.

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris (Jul 11, 2007 at 21:08 GMT)

Ray why don't you get on with GG? They are looking for engineers.

J Sears (Jul 11, 2007 at 21:14 GMT)

I came out of the navy nuclear engineering program and basically had my choice of jobs between nuclear engineering jobs and electrical engineering jobs. Yes the jobs I got offered and the one I took paid great money, but I hated it and quit. Guess the cliche saying of the grass is always greener is true. Although I don't think I could handle being a teacher

Ray Depew (Jul 12, 2007 at 01:41 GMT)

Great idea, Phil. But I dunno if American colleges have just-plain-old lecturers. I could teach some of GG's Torque Boot Camps.

Andy, you should give it a shot. The worst thing that could happen is that, after a year or two, you go back to engineering. I'm not sorry I went into teaching. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I'm glad I did it. I will treasure forever the memories and the friendships I gained. Three of the people I taught with (hey! four of us, out of six in the math department!) were former engineers of one flavor or another.

Donald, I'd actually enjoy that, and it's something I'm investigating right now.

JSears, there's a lot of truth in what you said. Remember what the lady mouse said in An American Tail: "Money isn't everything. I know, because I have money and I have everything. And they're different."

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