After years of crazy studying hours, insane exams, and wild expectations, you have made it! You’re an engineer! Whether mechanical, electrical, aeronautical, environmental, computer, civil, industrial (you get the idea…), you can proudly tell people that you are an engineer.
If only you could make them stop asking you to fix their fridge, or explain to them, in layman’s terms, what it is exactly that you do.
Here are 15 things that only an engineer would understand.
1. You were practically in a relationship with your caffeinated beverage of choice.
The code doesn’t work like it’s supposed to. You need a week to understand the mathematical equations before you can even crack the engineering portion of it. The circuit board doesn’t work because of a burnt-out component. If there was something that could go wrong, it did. There weren’t enough hours in the day, but that’s OK. You don’t need sleep. You have Red Bull!
2. You took apart a radio or the back of the television just to see what was inside.
Your mom was furious, but you’ve done it countless times again since then. I think you owe your mom a radio.
3. Your class size was always cut in half by the end of drop week.
You walk in on the first day of class. All the seats are taken. By the end of that drop week, half of those students are gone. And by the first assignment, you kind of wish you had left too.
4. Everyone who knows you’re an engineer thinks you can fix their household appliances.
OK, so maybe there are times you can fix it. But that’s not what you went to school for. You’ve worked on intricate projects. You’ve come up with revolutionary theories and technology. You’ve sat in one spot and coded for nights on end. You did not go to school to fix someone’s fridge or a Keurig machine that’s on the fritz!
5. Contrary to #4, you have modified a household appliance that was working perfectly just to make it better.
It’s not enough if something only works flawlessly. It should work to your personally-desired needs. Case in point: I know a NASA engineer who programmed his Keurig machine to his cell phone. This way, he can turn it on from bed with no effort. Ah, the user-friendly life of an engineer!
6. Girls were practically mythical beings.
As a female engineer, I was a unicorn in the world for years. Sometimes, there would be one other girl in the class, which was twice as much as I was used to. Fortunately for all of us, there are more women coming into the engineering world. “Who runs the world? Girls!”
7. When a child asks you a simple question, you explain the most elaborate answer possible.
A little girl ask you, “Why is it raining?” You begin to explain the water cycle in detail, the transportation of water from the atmosphere to the surface of the earth, and of course, the different forms of precipitation. The little girl says “OK” with a blank stare and then walks away.
8. When you speak about your work, people think you’re nuts.
Yes, it’s not just children, but adults as well who can’t understand the things you try to explain. Usually, someone will regret asking you about your work. But it’s not your fault. Sometimes, you can’t help sounding like a martian from the sixth dimension of the universe.
9. You go above and beyond on projects….your kid’s science projects.
Chances are you designed this child’s project in AutoCAD or SolidWorks. You probably used PSpice if you threw in some electronics. Meanwhile, you son’s classmates have some baking soda and vinegar for their volcano, or a potato for their clock.
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10. The people at Radio Shack can’t answer your questions.
They’re always great at helping you locate what you need. But those intricate and convoluted questions are something you have to deal with on your own.
11. You were the president of the audio-visual, robotics, mathematics, and/or coding club at your school.
Your love of technology and the unknown is as real as your shopping addiction at Jameco Electronics.
12. People think you know everything!
The truth of the matter is that if you are an engineer, you realized a long time ago that you know nothing. And that’s great! It means your mind is open to everything.
13. The things you learned as an engineering student are not the things you do as an engineer in the real world.
In college, those lectures, never-ending projects, technical reports, and mathematical lunacy were all just to help you lose yourself in the “reality distortion field.” It’s a place where nothing is what it seems. You have to lose your mind as an engineering student first in order to embrace the “anything is possible” mentality all engineers must embrace.
14. You envied those non-engineering majors.
They had such balance in their life. They went to class, went to the library, and then, they actually had time to go out. Don’t even get me started on their study breaks! They could actually sit down to a meal without rushing or talking about the work. They didn’t even look at their study materials while eating. How luxurious!!!
15. You spend more time behind a computer screen than anywhere else.
And this was before the social media takeover! You were doing it before everyone else, and you probably still are. Since you’re usually looking at your screen, you might have more friends online than in person.
As an engineer, you can understand the esoteric things. You love technical things, and there’s just something about it that calms your soul. After dealing with social pressure in school, demanding professors, and no sleep (ever!), you are an engineer. You can do anything. Congratulations! You’re damn near a superhero!
Featured photo credit: engineers via google.com.hk
