[I suspect you've never been through a proper engineering curriculum.
Then you aren't being much of an engineer. A good engineer deals in facts and not suspicions. You can surmise all you wish about mine or anyone Else's skills, education and sacrifice. What basis to you have to suggest the pathway you have taken involved more/less sacrifices than any other person.
Normal 16+ hour days of study and working on projects. Missing out on football games and student life semester after semester after semester just so you don't fall behind. Breaking into the locked engineering building on weekends to use equipment while your non-engineering friends are partying. Sleeping in the lab.
Oh poor you! Your struggle is somehow more than that of some enthusiast working two rubbish jobs to support a certificate qualification? Your struggle far more important than that of the enthusiast going it alone and trying to educate themself while supporting a family? Your struggle is greater than those who throw their very existence into an engineering based business putting their homes on the line, to guarantee wages for the technicians, tradesmen and engineers they employ? Is four to five years of effort supposed to cover a lifetime in the workforce? Take your hand of it!
There's a reason why engineering has less than a minority presence amongst Greek student life.
Studying, business, law, medicine, etc pays more, studying exercise physiology gets more girls? Studying engineering is far more likely to have you associated with perpetual time wasters, alcoholics and dropkicks the discipline unfortunately also attracts.
There's a reason why the engineering building parking lot is always packed on weekends and holidays
perhaps it is indication that the curriculum is lacking in the practical skills needed to maintain a typical ageing student motor car in a running condition.
Yes, it's a career choice and yes, we love what we do, but you are in no position to say that sacrifices aren't made.
What is it, that puts you in a position that says your sacrifice is any greater than that of so many others? If you love it so much, is it how can it equate with the sacrifice of the enthusiast who works a job he hates to fund his hobby or the quest for entry into an industry they aspire to?
Remember not everyone had the same path or opportunity to a tertiary qualification you did? Think of that next time you want to bang on about sacrifice!
Don't kid yourself. Jim Williams spent 10-11 years (depending on your source) teaching and performing research at MIT. Reference contributors section in this or this. Besides, there isn't a single person on this forum who's even remotely comparable to Jim Williams.
Yes and that is thanks to people in those institutions who did not have an elitist boys club mentality. Engineering and education professionals who could recognise talent, skill and ability. If it was left up to the "we deserve respect set", much of the brilliance of Mr Williams would never have been shared throughout the community and industry. How do you know there is no one comparable to Mr Williams on this forum, are you a qualified psychic and and an engineer? Hell there are a lot of better qualified people here if that's the yardstick.
If you look at one of the greatest and most respected attributes of Mr Williams it was his skill to explain complex circuits in a simple and readily understood manner, something those hung up getting respect could never hope to emulate.