The "Right" Path?

There is no such thing as a "right" path when it comes to a field of study. But you can definitely say you prefer one over the other when the differences between them are great enough.

With more exposure to my major, industrial and labor relations, as well as mathematics in preparation for econ grad school, I'm beginning to see the divergence between the "soft" and "hard" sciences. The more "hard" sciences are more related to finding out the absolute Truths while the "soft" sciences are more concerned with the relative truths. I am not concerned with the relative truths because they are constantly changing and are of no consequence to anyone. Sure, union negotiations are important to the rest of us, but the results are not based off of any absolute truths and are not the least bit predictable because people do stupid things.

Onto studying people who do stupid things, economics appeals to me because although people do stupid things, the same people do the same stupid things. However, all rules can be broken down into exceptions and generalities. These rules are the absolute truths. Finding these rules are always subject to scrutiny on the basis of evaluation and analysis (econometrics, anyone?). But in the purely "hard" sciences, there are just absolute truths.

That is why I have always considered being an engineer. And I get to make stuff to test out. It's like making an econometric model to test on data. Some people combine engineering with soft studies like management and act as a middleman between engineering and management. Because management probably doesn't know how to do any calculations outside of excel - which they probably haven't done since they were lower-level management. But I've always liked to build and design things. Right now, I am daydreaming about a design for the "hidden blade" from the video game Assassin's Creed.

But seriously, I have thought about the mathematics behind engineering and I can't help but find it very exciting. The equations that represent the absolute truths in the world. It's too late to completely change my academic path towards engineering, but maybe I can do a lot of math...