[banjomike]

As long as the school you go to has a solid program you'll be fully challenged. I am an ME also. I have done very little work as an engineer though. If the school you goes to matters a little, that totally evaporates once you've passed the PE exam. I'd say go with ME. I have always thought of it as practical physics. You study mechanics (statics, dynamics, strength of materials...) and flow (thermodynamics, fluids, compressible fluids, heat transfer...). You also get to touch on electronics, materials, processes, programming, etc. The fact that you don't get hyper specialized as an undergrad is why I went with ME. You're always getting something new. I loved the flow classes and did pretty well, but controls, and numerical methods were also really fun. I had an evil, slave-driving, cruel taskmaster for controls and barely got a C. But, over the summer break I found myself thinking about everything in terms of feedback loops and stability. I realized that I had really learned. So I signed up for the advanced controls class with the same professor. It was 3x as hard and I loved it. Got an A. The guy was brilliant at teaching systems modeling. He was famous for his 48hour tests. He'd hand out an exam and it would be due 48hours later. You'd take it home and work on it until bedtime. Wake up and work on it all day, all night, and right up until it was due. He got canned a few years later which was too bad since he was the best teacher there (despite being an evil slavedriving SOB). If I were doing it again I'd still go with ME but I would emphasize materials. It seems like every practical design issue I have ever dealt with boils down to materials issues.

Definately go back to school, and do it because you want to learn! I'm almost envious (but that is because I have forgotten how much I hated homework!).