ken285, if you don't mind, could you say which field you were looking at? I'm a CMU alum, so it would hurt me if you turned down materials.
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This course of action strikes me as being rather unrealistic for most people simply because it presumes a level of foresight that most people just don't have. As a case in point, what if you are truly planning on entering a non-engineering field after graduation (i.e. law, medicine, consulting, banking, etc.) but, like you said, want the rigorous skillset that engineering can provide, but then just do poorly in engineering? I think all of us can immediately think of numerous engineering students who got poor grades. Those poor grades are going to severely damage your chances of pursuing that non-engineering career that they had originally planned on pursuing. For example, if you want to be a strategy consultant, you actually have to get a consulting job offer, and that's not that easy to get if your grades are poor.
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First, people that don't do well in engineering that didn't want to stick it out in the first place are usually made fun of by the rest of us. It's kinda like how chem and bio majors don't like premeds in their classes since they're just there to get as high a grade as possible and not because they have any sort of interest in the courses.
Everyone I knew that really had a passion for engineering was able to get through their classes without too much of a problem. While they didn't necessarily love their homework, they were able to enjoy the problems they were solving and see what was interesting and exciting about what they were doing.
And, really, a highly motivated person should be able to do well no matter what field they're in. And if they wind up sucking nut in engineering, they'd probably find that out freshman year and be able to switch out to some other field to keep their GPA high.
And it's true that those that switch to business majors might make more money, but I don't know how much more you'd have to pay me to give me the job satisfaction I get doing engineering.