Engineering craze or crazy engineers?

"Our society ought to stop forcing students to take engineering!", I heard a friend vehemently exclaim for what seemed like the nth million time! When something is so oft repeated, it just fails to make a significant impact. Not surprisingly, the passionate statement didnt so much as ruffle my feathers. But well, in all fairness to the speaker, the only things that extract anything even remotely related to a passionate response from me are cheese pizzas, icecreams and occasionally male chauvinistic P**gs! But undeterred by my lack of enthusiasm, I wondered if it would make a good enough topic for a blog. Well, there is only one way to find out!
For starters, people often fail to see the kind of society we live in, atleast the society that i come from. Its the kind of society, where the society itself is of utmost importance. Given that, a logical result is that fact that individuality is sacrificed for the greater good of the society. Another logical yet not obvious result is the fact that the society perpetuates certain trends which catch on quickly. More often than not these popular trends dont even have much of a basis, but most people adopt them for fear of being left out. The "engineering craze" as I'd like to call it is a perfect example. It would be perfectly reasonable to ask why it started in the first place. Simple! The engineering route is the easiest and fastest way to get a degree and start earning good money! Atleast thats what i was told when i was faced with a choice! Getting an engineering degree is quite simply, the easiest course one can take. The sudden mushrooming of engineering colleges in every nook and cranny has decidedly made a degree all the more easily attainable. Now thats a typical chicken and egg situation for you, the chicken being the deluge of engineering colleges and the egg being people wanting to become engineers!
There are 4 different ways in which people deal with this kind of a situation. One, they go along with the flow hoping that the destination they get to is in fact where they wanted to get to in the first place. Two, they furiously paddle against the flow also hoping that the opposite direction is the one that will lead to the right destination and taking great pride in doing so! Ofcourse, these are two extremes. The last two are somewhat more subtle. There are those among us that actually like doing what it is that everyone is doing. One might conclude that this is the best scenario: not only are you taking the easy way out, you actually like what you end up doing! But, its hardly that simple. People who belong to this category actually have a tougher life than those who chose to oppose the whole thing. Not only do they have to prove themselves in an arena teeming with a million others, their job is made more difficult by the teeming millions threatening to engulf them in mediocracy. Lastly, there are those that dont care about what trends are existent and who simply take the unpopular choice becuase they like it. But this is much easier said than done! Not only do they have to wade through all the obstacles, they have to keep believing in themselves against the odds. The people who are different for the sake of being different atleast enjoy the battle against the majority, because thats what drives them on. And well, no matter how often we tell people to "not care what others say" and no matter how often we hear it said to us, we do care, very much so!
My aim is not to be judgemental and say that a particular group of people is noble and another isnt. It takes different kinds of people to make up this world. To define one kind, you need another! But what does amuse me is to see people being hypocritical and blaming someone else for their deeds. And whats even more amusing is to see them blame an entity like soceity which is infact an organization of their own making that thrives solely because of the importance given to it! So, to me, it seems that as long as we remain the same old human beings with the same old needs and wants, these funny little trends will continue to be a part of our lives and if we werent caught up in the "engineering craze", we would get caught up in yet another craze!

.....Oh and if you are still waiting for me to tell you which of the four categories i think i belong to, you just have to keep waiting!!