This question resonated with me because I am a manufacturing quality engineer. I too felt at times as you do. When I was in school, I questioned my career choice, had jobs where I was unhappy and dissatisfied, so what I did is explored other careers. After working as an engineer for about 15 years, I took a 10 year break. I tried teaching, computer network support and a few other things, such as pizza delivery. I found that none of those other things were as satisfying as engineering. Yes, it involves doing repetitive, mundane tasks, but those helped me gain knowledge, enabling me to hone skills like discipline and commitment. All the other jobs I’ve done have lots of repetitive mundane tasks as well.

I finally went back to engineering, and discovered that I do belong here. I prefer making things, or being a part of a team that makes things. I’d rather work with things, products and processes, than with people. I can lead projects, I can solve problems, I cooperatively work on teams and even can build teams to work on problems I cannot solve all by myself. I can see the big picture, and not focus on all the mundane tasks that are necessary for me to do my job. I guess I have found my passion. And when I realized this, all the petty tasks I have to do didn’t bother me anymore. I am paid to produce results, thus I am not free to merely accomplish task that I like, but to do what needs to be done. And, it took a lot of experience to get to where I am today, some of which was not all that fun.

I may not have had this insight at the beginning of my career if I had not had doubts and fears, so they did serve a purpose. Don’t be afraid to try out other things. I know that I didn’t really know what I would like to do until I did. And remember, you always have choice. Choosing a specific major or career does not obligate you to do work in a certain field for the rest of your life. Besides, we always give our interns the most distasteful tasks that we ourselves don’t want to do, but need to be done. 🙂

Good Luck!