In high school, there was no doubt. I wanted to design Ferraris at Pininfarina. Except I thought the route was through mechanical engineering. And certainly no one else told me otherwise.
Flash forward three years into an ME degree. I remember this as clear as anything. I was about half way through doing a Power Law equation, non-Newtonian flow through a square tube for my fluids class. This is about a 6-page diffy-Q for those who don’t know. It was at that moment that I had my epiphany - I didn’t care what the answer was. I knew if I followed the prerequisite steps, I would ententually get the right answer. But I didn’t care. I was done.
About a week or two later, I was talking with my sculpture professor. In hindsight, I had the right instinct about what I wanted to do, all of my electives were either life-drawing or sculpture classes in the school of fine art. But I still never heard of ID. I told my professor of my frustration and he gave me a Newsweek or Time article about Art Center. My eyes were opened.
I completed the semester and dropped out of ME, 2 semesters from graduation. I took 1 semester off to work on a portfolio. I entered ID school, busted my hump taking 18-21 credits a semester and summer school and graduated in another 2 years. Not a lot of credits transfered from ME.
My parents certainly were not happy about the move, but I haven’t looked back since. And I couldn’t be happier.