A Real Grown Up

When I went home over Thanksgiving, I uncovered a lot of artifacts from my childhood. There were some old toys and pictures, but the most interesting thing that I found was a letter that I had written to myself in 5th grade.  I think most kids have a lot of dreams and ideas, I mostly just had a lot of questions for when I was grown up.  What did I want to be when I grew up?  Was my favorite color still red?  Was I able to ski faster than my dad? Did I still go to Minnesota in the summer? What was my favorite book?

I realized I knew all the answers. So I'm a grown up now?  I'm a legal adult, have grown taller than most kids, and have worked a couple of jobs.  I've even graduated high school.  I'm 20 years old, practically ancient to my 5th grade self.  It's strange, I don't feel like much of a grown up.

I guess there isn't much of an obvious transition between the two states.  Wouldn't things be easier if we could see the changes?

So now I'm starting to wonder at what point I become an engineer.  I've worked in a couple labs, read countless research articles, collected data, written lab reports, lead group meetings, worked on original research, and even given a research proposal.  10 years ago I probably would have thought that that makes me an engineer.  But in reality, I'm just a sleep deprived junior at MIT who has successfully survived two UROPs and 20.109.  So not really an engineer, not yet.