Sorry for missing that point.I'm happy to hear that you are doing great now and enjoying your job.
Guess i will have to make some leap soon too....

that's pretty ironic that before that you say you hate it and then liking it.Anyways,do you have any slight regrets quitting your PhD since you are still in E&E now anyways?

Yeah exacty, there are just so many things to learn and master in E&E. and after 6 years of studying it,i still have to say i haven't even touch the peak of the iceberg yet and most probably i've forgotten lots of what i knew before. Example,i remembered i mastered the C language for hardware programming, and i took lots of frustration just to learned it,but eventually i got the hang of it. And now,i don't even know how how to program it anymore. And there are tons of these kind of cases where i just spend time and effort learning and losing it. FYI,i';m doing controls for power systems,researching mostly on converters ,modulation and compensation of transmission lines. I must say i'm pretty surprised that you are still in the engineering field after hearing what you said in your old posts that this is not your interest at all. You quoted "but when if finish my PhD, I can't see myself staying in this line of work". I thought you wanted to be a cop? And now it seems that you find engineering enjoyable again? Yeah,i want to be true to myself but yet sometimes it's so confusing isn't it ,not knowing what you really want to do or what you are good at or weather you're going to enjoy it :|

Hey,i'm so glad you replied.yeah,kudos to emails:) E&E doesn't rock my boat as well as others. It's so depressing to hear how the other ppl are actually enjoying or saying it's ok to what they are researching on because for me it's dry,boring and hard stuff.Having to sit in front of the screen for hours staring at equations and circuits and cracking our heads everyday. Worst still,the work often also follows me even after i stopped working,somehow it's like the problems are sticking to my head. I;m so sick of having to spend my efforts and brains learning programs after programs, E&E theories after theories and discover later that you are not using it anyways. And the technological advancement of E&E is just too way fast to even catch up or be an expert in. I admit there are some moments of joy like when i get to make stuff work or when i successfully troubleshoot a problem but those moments are just too way short compared to the moments of suffering trying to figure out the problem.And yeah,E&E is DAMN tough in comparison to other courses and its way unrewarding. I can't believe my friends who are in business lines earn far better than an engineer. And more than an E&E engineer?? i actually did work as a test programmer after i graduated from my undergrad. and working life for me wasnt' enjoyable,just staring at the screen everyday troubleshooting codes.By the time i get back home,my mind was in a state of oblivion. My ex- project supervisor actually called me to ask if i'm willing to come back for research and so i thought why not since everything is paid for. But in actual fact,i wasn't even interested in research particularly in EE but i was just thinking maybe i could become a lecturer. So here i am,after after 1 and half years,i have good progress but it seems that it's not what i really wanted to do any longer because i can't bare the thought of teaching something which i myself hate eventhough i perform reasonably well in it. Sometimes i just wished that my results are so bad that i know i'm definately out of this field. There is always this desire to quit engineering altogether even when i was in my undergrad years and go into some other field which involves more of meeting people and thinking less technical stuffs but i think the thought of throwing all the hard work and results away somehow just buried that thought. And now,these thoughts are back again simply because i know i need to make a decision weather to complete my PhD all the way is what i wanted to do. I'm some sort half way towards my PhD and i'm pretty sure many will call me a fool to drop it off now after all the hard work of research.But i know i'm not a quitter if not i would have quit much longer ago when everything is blurry and don't even know what i'm doing. Sometimes i wonder that's the problem.
Are you still in the engineering line btw? Sorry to hear my ranting,appreciate your feedback.

Hi guitarman,
it's been a while since you posted anything up. I'm currently also a Phd student and it's been almost 1 and a half since i've started. My whole PhD program should be about 3 and half including write up as a whole. I'm majoring in power systems and controls and all these while i've been feeling miserable and pointless in doing it. I'm not a fan of maths or electronics but somehow i get to score well in my undergrad and i'm also doing pretty ok with my current research.The question is weather i still want to do it or not in fact i think i pretty much hate the technicality of EE,having to learn all the complicated stuff and probably throw it away later to learn another. Everything seems so complicated and damn technical,it's just felt like i have no space to breath at all or even relax. The only reason why i did my PhD is because i thought i wanted to be a lecturer,but then i was thinking how can i teach a subject which i myself have no passion? i woudn't even want to do any further research at all if i'm a lecturer. I'm simply not interested eventhough i can do it. My supervisor is convinced that i can finish this but i'm just not sure if that's what i want anymore. I hope to hear any comments.Thanks

Regards
alvin