Your gas station days will be but a faded memory in the long run.
Like you said... school is important.
Glad to hear you're in engineering.
I remember engineering school. I have the piece of paper on the wall to prove it. Too bad I never used one bit of all the technical crap I learned.
I remember the days of....
Long nights in the computer lab. I think I took Pascal.
20 page solutions to math problems (and then you discover a mistake on page 1)
Running all over fucking campus because you've got one class here and the other 2 miles away!
I minored in materials engineering and took a bunch of finite element analysis classes. One of the neatest classes with the helicopter structures class. We had some engineers from the Army or Air Force come in and show us test crash footage of helicopters. Saw footage of what an apache helicopter blade can do to a pilot's skull when it fractures and penetrates the cockpit. Yummy! One guy puked in class.
I took I think 5 levels of calculus, partial differential equations, dif Eqs, statics, dynamics, materials, composite materials, fia, advanced fia, a whole bunch of fluid dynamics classes, propulsion, virbration and flutter, CAD classes... blah blah...
One of my projects is still online...
http://eml.ou.edu/FE/students/W93/Ellzey/Ellzey.htm I think this was done on a Mac II!!!!!!
I don't even remember half the shit I spent 5 years studying. I couldn't integrate an equation if my life depended on it. Finally threw away all my college textbooks and notes about 7 years ago.
I did save my Senior Project was a complete aircraft design of a joint strike fighter/trainer. I think it was 315 pages of engineering.
I'm sure it would have been different had I actually gone into engineering. Graduated wrong time, wrong degree.
I even did the co-op program with Pratt & Whitney in the West Palm Military and Space Systems Division. I worked on F-15/F-16 engines. SR71 engines before it got canned, Space Shuttle fuel pumps and one semester I worked on the F22 Raptor engines while it was all still secretive. Had a Secret government clearance...
Ahh the good ole days!