I might as well start off what will hopefully become a long series of Odyssey articles with how I got to where I am now. My first year of college is coming to a close, and I can truly say I do not regret my choice of mechanical engineering as a major.

It's a choice I made with little thought. It wasn't as random as one of my friends' decision between two colleges with a coin flip, but I didn't agonize over my starting major either. I knew I would end up with a major in the STEM field, and I figured I should choose some type of engineering because it's usually easier to leave an engineering program than to enter one. And the most generic, generalized, almost boring field of engineering is mechanical.

I didn't start out particularly enthusiastic about my choice. I saw it almost as a placeholder major, and that I would transfer to another field of engineering- maybe electrical since my dad and I built a Tesla coil a while ago. Or maybe I would change to a science such as chemistry, since I liked the AP course. Mechanical engineering really did seem generic and common. It's the most common major at my college, and I would assume it's the most common engineering major in general.

But gradually, it's grown on me. I can't help but wonder if part of it is spending time with non-MEs. Most of my good friends at college are computer science majors, so being an ME becomes more of an exotic thing. I've sort of noticed myself developing the persona of the ME, someone who actually works with practical things in the physical world. Being the minority may have helped me get over the feeling that mechanical engineering is boring because it's a common major to choose. Even a contrarian has to admit that when a lot of people like something, it may be worth checking out.

And what makes mechanical engineering so great is that you can go so many places with it. There are people who go on to make race cars, or study thermodynamics in graduate school, or make medical devices that save human lives. I don't know quite what I will do after college. I know me, and I know I will try to save the world in one way or another, but I don't know in what way. All I really know is that I would rather be a polymath than a specialist. Specialist are important - I would want one to operate on my brain, for example - but I see more interest in pulling disparate elements together. I might move on from mechanical engineering to study systems engineering, which involves bringing together components created by specialists and getting them to work together.

And more broadly, I am a polymath in the sense that I deeply value knowledge outside of STEM. I like to see myself as a philosopher and a student of history and literature. I want my main field of study to be something practical, but man cannot survive on bread alone. It's not enough to be a good at one thing - you need to be at least familiar with all subjects. How else will we communicate with one another? To me, mechanical engineering is a reflection of this mindset, to encompass all ideas.

So yes, I think I chose my path well a year ago.