Engineers
2020 sucks. You know how awful quarantine and lockdowns feel.
Engineers who are currently suffering from the devastation of Covid-19 pandemic, you are not alone.
As you scroll through your social media accounts, you see how messy the fights are among your friends who have different opinions on how to curb the pandemic. You see the news and you know that the Philippines is still far from giving its citizens the vaccines needed by everyone.
But let’s not turn this letter into a political one.
Let’s focus on how hard the year of pandemic has been for you. Someone probably died in the family due to Covid-19 complication. Probably your dad, your mom, a dear relative or a sibling.
Maybe someone left you and you got your heart broken. Or you had to leave someone behind even though you never wanted to.
That must have been hard for you – to lose someone you love. You probably even had to cancel plans with friends.
You might have gotten sick and the terror of going to the hospital alone made the feeling unbearable. Yep, these things could happen to you in just a year and you just want it to be over.
But one of the things that really make this year hard for you may be the fact that you are still struggling as a young engineer.
You see your friends starting to have a good life with their partners and enjoying a wonderful career in engineering or in any other profession.
You see someone pursuing a master’s degree and you feel stuck in a work that you find yourself bored at.
You hear your engineer friends getting a raise and you realize that you could barely make it out financially stable with the money you’re earning from your work.
You know your dreams are still out of reach and given the way the system works here in the country, you know it will take a long time before you could achieve the good life you’ve always wanted. Because let’s face it. Sometimes, it takes luck to make it in this country and that is something you don’t have right now.
It was never easy to begin with. Your path to becoming the engineer that you are right now was challenging. From getting the money to pay for your tuition fee to passing every hard subject you took in school, you wanted a good life after all of it… but here you are, still struggling.
You find yourself overworked. You’re underpaid. And you find yourself about to give up. You’ve been contemplating on moving to another country to seek a better life.
Maybe it will be the best decision you’ll ever make for yourself.
You feel lost. You’re upset that the things you expected to happen never happened.
You may have passed the licensure exam and you may have gotten a stable job but what now?
You don’t see yourself growing as a better individual (or engineer) with the work you have and you’re always tired. So what do you do now?
You fight. You don’t give up.
You’re young and you still have a long way to go. Stop comparing yourself to the other engineers you know and just focus on what yourself.
If you don’t want to settle, then don’t. Look for other options. Go find a better and exciting job. Study again if you want to. Pursue your passions.
This year may suck for you but it doesn’t mean you have a bad life. Don’t give up. Have faith in yourself.
We all know how Filipinos are good at making things happen even if they’re down on their luck. Just fight and hope that next year will be a better year for a young Filipino engineer like you.
