I will say this about math: at 17, it’s really hard to know if limited success in math is the result of poor aptitude or poor teaching/not enough effort. I mean, you’re likely not unusually gifted in math–you’d know by now if you were–but you might well be perfectly adequate, provided you had good instruction. If you really, really want to be an engineer (and I am not convinced that’s the case), the thing to do would be to take calculus in college and get your butt to the tutoring lab from the very first day. Figure out who is GOOD at explaining this stuff and exploit the hell out of them. Get on Khan academy. Put a good 2-3 hours a day into math. Stay ahead of the class. Good math instruction and meaningful practice make all the difference, and if you’d never had good math instruction, you don’t even know that.
This. I myself was only what I would call “adequate” at math. I found my success and my grades depended a bit on the teacher/professor, and whether his/her explanations worked for me. I may not grasp something, but put it a different way, and I “get” it.
Given that the OP is uncertain whether engineering is right for him, I recommend that he attend a “well-rounded” university. By which I mean one with a variety of majors in various disciplines, both nerdy (engineering, computer science, other sciences, math, etc) and non-nerdy (humanities, social sciences, business, etc). The school I attended was almost purely a nerd school, so if you went there but learned partway through that engineering/computer science/science was not for you, you had few viable options within the university for a change of major. (You could, of course, transfer to another university but often by the time those who found that they were in the wrong major, they had crappy GPAs, which made transferring to another good university difficult. We called this status “failing in”.)
Or the fact that the mods are refusing to move it.
Still.
Here’s the thing - Miller hasn’t been on since 2.17.17. Given this is a long weekend in the US, this doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. This thread was started after the time he last logged on. I wouldn’t take this as an invitation to go hogwild, just saying that he’s often by his lonesome out here and some of us don’t venture down this way that often. I did happen to notice several reports of this thread so I’m taking it on myself to move it.
Moved from the Pit to IMHO.
[/moderating]
You’re saying Miller took a powder three days after Valentine’s Day?
I propose a TOAST. Our Miller is IN LOVE!!!
Sing along to “Chuck E’s In Love” with me:
Miller’s in luh-uhhhhve…
I don’t like feeding trolls, but:
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Many engineering degrees are 15-30% math. If you like to tinker with stuff, there are lots of technology options. If you find math difficult, you’d need to put in a lot of time to get better at it, and if you found high school math hard engineering will be much, much harder. It’s hard even if you are good at math and physics.
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It is hard to become a tenured professor and many PhDs are underemployed. A PhD is not a ticket to steady work much of the time.
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If you like computers, go on to computer science. If you don’t, it makes no sense.
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PhDs in engineering are usually a mistake, unless you are passionate about a topic of genuine importance to industry, business or academia.
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First look at what you enjoy, then what you are good at, or willing to spend a lot of time to get good at. Be realistic. You can always minor, or do as a hobby, something you like but won’t help you get work.
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You’re going to change your mind anyway. No harm in trying out one math or computer science or language course, and these might help you down the road anyway. Don’t even think about a masters or PhD without three years under your belt.
I have taught advanced calc for engineers and for many of them it was a deal breaker. If you have trouble factoring x^2 - 4, engineering is definitely not for you.
I second the idea of a guidance counselor.
I’ll second this. Unless your goal is to become an engineering professor, getting a PhD in engineering can often be a hindrance. The only engineering field that has an abundance of PhDs is research, and those jobs are hard to come by. They’re also the first to be cut when finances are tight.
Buisness professors are the highest paid.
Disclaimer: I was a business major. 
Within my first month of college at the University of Wisconsin, I formed a group of friends around a mutual interest in playing Dungeons & Dragons. 35 years later, most of us are still in touch with each other.
Anyway, out of that original group of 7 of us, there were 5 pre-engineering majors – I was pre-business, and the seventh was a journalism major. In order to even get into the School of Engineering, you needed to take (and pass) two semesters of calculus (and, as I understand it, most specialties in the Engineering school required further math once you got in). That requirement, alone, pruned 2 out of the 5 in our group out, sending them into other majors.
One of them, as a freshman, professed his tremendous desire to be an electrical engineer – but the placement test that all incoming freshmen had to take placed him in a low-level math class. He was looking at 2 semesters of, essentially, remedial math, before he could even begin to take his 2 semesters of calculus. When he struggled to get a C in that first semester of remedial math, he quickly realized that engineering wasn’t in his future.
Edit: I should have noted that the other three all did get degrees in engineering, and have gone on to successful careers in the field, but that none of them went beyond a bachelor’s degree.
I’m a college engineering instructor, and can attest that a bachelors degree is plenty good enough to get you a good job. But getting that bachelors is tough, even on people who like and are good at math. When that certain percentage inevitably flunk out, they generally move over to the business school, do well, and end up making more money than if they’d graduated in engineering.
As for a PhD, It is rarely economically worth it, but it does open up many lines of work that would otherwise be denied you. Such as expert witness, consulting, research, and teaching at the college level. So I see it more as a lifestyle decision than an economic decision.
Ex-Computer Science prof here.
The OP is not remotely going to be able to get very far in CS. Certainly not at the PhD level.
If you enroll in some sort of crappy diploma mill college and somehow get a CS degree, you won’t be able to work steadily in the field. You might be able to parlay the CS degree into a generic office job. But then you could get one of those with an less Mathematically challenging degree.
General reminder: Never go into Computer Science unless you first know what the field actually is. Also, you have to be avidly interested in the topic with good Math/Logic skills. It is not for people who heard that a CS degree is worth $ and therefore that’s the degree for them. Saw way too many of those folk.
I’d look at your other academic strengths. Business is very competitive and a degree doesn’t change that. Nursing, paramedics or health technicians are always in demand. If you can do ultrasounds, you’ll have steady work.
OK it’s become clear that I had no idea what I was talking about wrt engineering. Most of my experience was with people on the research, and liberal arts side side of things, and I actually don’t know very many engineers. Mea culpa. At least we are no longer in the pit so I can’t get the profanity filled tongue lashing I deserve.