I am in still college, I'm in my 4th year of getting an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering, though I probably have another year left. My problem is that I don't want to do a traditional 9-5 job, sitting in front of a desk all day. I would really rather design and build my own bikes, by hand, no middle man and no production line. I brought this up to my mother earlier today, saying that I wanted to build bikes, but all she said was, "Oh No! You DO NOT want to be in production!!" She doesn't understand what I mean, which I know I'll try again to explain it to her. But really everyone seems to think that I'm going to go to graduate school, which I am not. I have no interest in it.

To be honest, I would be happier working at a bike shop all day fixing bikes. I have more fun working on my bikes, making my hands bloody stumps (ok not really that bad, but I do routinely spend 12+ hours and not even realize it). But I'm not sure I can make a good living at it...houses are really expensive, and I do eventually want to get my own. And not to mention if I do end up having children, I want to be able to provide for them.

Where I work (I'm doing a MechE internship), there are so many PhD's, and my manager fantasizes about how he did math problems all day at MIT. I mean REALLY??!?!?! I don't have that much fun with it. And I'm not that smart.

Not to mention, most of what I heard about MechE jobs is that you quite often end up working many many more hours per week than 40, and I just can't handle that. I don't think it would be worth it for a desk job.

I really need advice!!!

Do any of you ladies build/work on bikes all day?? How did you get started?