Basically, I derive a significant amount of esteem and happiness from making things that people use. It was this that lead myself and those around me to believe I should pursue Engineering. Unfortunately, I derived very little to no esteem from what I felt was merely "book learning" at Cooper. The school system I grew up in was extremely liberal and forward-thinking, so Cooper Union felt extremely rigid to me (although I acknowledge the possibility that all Engineering programs are like this). I simply couldn't survive four years like that.
Ultimately, I studied Economics at NYU, so I moved away from Engineering to allow myself to pursue development on my own. There are other reasons why I moved to Economics, but thats the gist of it.