What should I do if I hate engineering, but my parents want me to become an engineer?
I hate engineering (too practical, too far from physics)


This in an unfortunately common misconception, which can bring nonsense answers like this one on Meta Physics SE, where it is said:


  If I pose this question to an electrical engineer, I will likely get design rules, possibly in the form of immediately useful formulae. If I pose it to a physicist, I may learn something about the physics of electromagnetic fields near dielectric boundaries, diverging fields at conductor corners, and maybe even something about conformal mapping. 


As an electronic engineer who specialized a long time ago in engineering electromagnetics, I can tell you that, yes, I've studied all of the theory above and much more than design rules. And I have also studied Langrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, chaotic dynamical systems, quantum mechanics, quantum optics, statistical mechanics, relativity. Indeed, with an engineering flavour, which I have actually come to appreciate along the years.

Said another way, engineering can be as theoretical as you wish it to be.


  I don't enjoy fixing things


Most engineers don't fix things.


  What should I do?


Some thirty-odd years ago I was somehow in your exact situation: I wanted to study physics, but my parents wanted me to do engineering because they felt that there were more job opportunities.

I studied engineering, but I chose my curriculum to have a good blend of electronics and physics and, now, I cannot be happier than this about my education.