Engineers and geekhood?

[ssj245]

Im confused but everywhere I ask people, everyone tends to say that engineers tend to be dorks geeks...blah blah. But Im still trying to choose a career and I think that engineering would be very interesting for me and rewarding.

Im stuck deciding between law or engineering. I want to be a aeronautical engineer if I can, or a lawyer.

But I dont want to grow up to be a social recluse with glasses that never gets out of his hole.

am i thinking the wrong way?

 

[Friendly Otter]

Yes, that is definitely thinking the wrong way. Engineers are not geeks, any more than any other academician. And if you have the option of being either a lawyer or an engineer, if you really have sufficient talent for both, then you should definitely choose engineering. Something that has to do with actual production is always safer and more rewarding than servicing the producers. And I am saying this even though I and my male relatives have all chosen jobs that have to do with law, economics, etc. Also: engineers can move anywhere, whereas lawyers are stuck!

I am going to make up a new word: compensationism. When people think of an expert in a field, any field, they feel the need to compensate his skill by thinking him much less equipped in other fields.

The guy with brawns can't have the brains, and vice versa. The math expert must be a geek socially. The jocks in the high school movie have to be bastards. The rich must be wicked, the poor good. The beautiful woman must be an "airhead," the ugly must be talented.

Though, there is some slight truth in this. People don't tend to have unusual talent in more than one field at the most, so we think: the athletic guy is blessed with a good physique; surely it's against the odds that he'd be blessed in other ways as well. And it is rare that people seek fulfillment by pushing themselves in more than one field, or possibly two.

But there is also some jealousy involved: we don't want other people to be too much better than ourselves. If we see someone much better than us in one field, we hope he sucks in other ways!

Hence compensationism.

A good example of this is the popular picture of aliens: short, thin, impossibly thin necks for their big heads, expressionless faces, no big ears and no eyebrows or eyelashes, extremely long fingers. All this because we associate them with super-duper technology. We imagine that they need long fingers to push buttons. We imagine that they need big heads because they are so smart. We imagine that someone who is very smart must have a scrawny physique. And we imagine that beings so connected to technology must have less emotions, like uber-geeks - so they have tiny mouths that can't express emotions, and they don't have any eyebrows or fluttering eyelashes to express emotions with either. (Could you imagine a computer-genius alien who is ten feet tall, all muscles, and with fur and claws like a wild beast?)

That's why the movie makers made aliens look this way in Close Encounters and E.T. - and then, going from a wider variety of imagined aliens before that, everybody quickly and universally adopted this picture of an alien, because it rang so true in our minds.

I am digressing wildly from ssj's question here, of course. But you see why people will think that engineers are geeks - have to be, because we'd hate for the well-paid bastards to be socially skilled as well!

 

[BrotherAP]

Who gives a crap what everyone thinks engineers should be. It's not like becoming good at engineering will make you a geek. Look at it this way - with an engineering degree, you'll be a respected professional who makes more money than 90% of the world's population. You'll be able to afford to dress well and live how you want. Enjoy that.

 

[spider_007]

>Remember - Keep smiling.
>It makes people wonder what your up to !!



>>Understanding Engineers - Take One

Two engineering students crossing the park when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The first engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two

To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three

A priest, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The priest said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him." "Hi George! Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Four

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons and Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers - Take Five

"Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Engineers believe that "if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet"

Understanding Engineers - Take Six

An engineer was crossing a road one-day when a frog called out to
him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you
want." Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into
his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."




Top 25 Engineer's Terms and Expressions (What they say versus what they mean)

A number of different approaches are being tried. (We are still guessing at this point.)

Close project coordination. (We sat down and had coffee together.)

An extensive report is being prepared on a fresh approach. (We just hired three punk kids out of school.)

Major technological breakthrough! (It works OK; but looks very hi-tech!)

Customer satisfaction is believed assured. (We are so far behind schedule, that the customer will take anything.)

Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive. (The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.)

Test results were extremely gratifying! (Unbelievable, it actually worked!)

The entire concept will have to be abandoned. (The only guy who understood the thing quit.)

It is in process. (It is so wrapped in red tape that the situation is completely hopeless.)

We will look into it. (Forget it! We have enough problems already.)

Please note and initial. (Let's spread the responsibility for this.)

Give us the benefit of your thinking. (We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we have already done or with what we are going to do.)

Give us your interpretation. (We can't wait to hear your bull.)

See me or let's discuss. (Come to my office, I've messed up again.)

All new. (Parts are not interchangeable with previous design.)

Rugged. (Don't plan to lift it without major equipment.)

Robust! (Rugged, but more so)

Light weight. (Slightly lighter than rugged)

Years of development. (One finally worked)

Energy saving. (Achieved when the power switch is off.)

No maintenance. (Impossible to fix)

Low maintenance. (Nearly impossible to fix)

Fax me the data. (I'm too lazy to write it down.)

We are following the standard! (That's the way we have always done it!)

I didn't get your e-mail. (I haven't checked my e-mail for days.)

 

[spider_007]

But I dont want to grow up to be a social recluse with glasses that never gets out of his hole.

on the serious side
If your out-going and charming, it don't matter what you do for a living, you'll still get azz.

 

[ShizamDaMan]

I'm studying mechanical engineering. I go out. I party. I have friends. I pull girls. I'm a pretty average college student, save a more difficult major than average.

Engineering now is not what it was 30, 20, even 10 years ago. Now they look for able bodied men to lead companies, with strong social skills that scream out upper management/CEO positions. It's all about you. I know dorky engineers who shudder at talking to a girl, and I also know engineers who are full blown players.

 

[Fitch]

Lawyers are the one's holed up in a room for days preparing for a case. Law is not glamourous as you think, haha.

I love law, I am pursuing it but YOU have to understand that it is more work than engineering. You WILL have no life if you want to be a SUCCESSFUL lawyer.

Unless you want to be an average lawyer earning 50K a year with a family.

 

[Joe The Homophobe]

Software engineering was rated the number 1 job in America recently in a study. You can work anywhere you want, excellent pay, not a lot of stress, jobs are always available. I wanted to be a software engineer but my math is horrible, math ruined my life he he.

 

[Friendly Otter]

What if Dr Seuss did Technical Writing? (For toddler engineers)


Here's an easy game to play.
Here's an easy thing to say:

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

You can't say this?
What a shame sir!
We will find you
Another game sir.

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risk,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!

 

[GirlCrazy]

Software engineering was rated the number 1 job in America recently in a study. You can work anywhere you want, excellent pay, not a lot of stress, jobs are always available. I wanted to be a software engineer but my math is horrible, math ruined my life he he.

20 years of developing software for a living, and the highest math I've used was trig., which required a 4 hour crash course from my sister the math professor.

These days, working in the financial sector, I use Algebra every day, and that's about it.

There's very little software being developed that requires higher math. Military / Aerospace is the only field that comes to mind.

I worked on a wireless "shrinkwrap" software package (sold at every CompUSA until it tanked), and even the guys with a Phd in engineering couldn't understand the compression algorithms. We finally outsourced it to a chinese mathematician, who took care of it.

I worked on the traffic management system that (at least in '94) controlled the NYC subway and the Chicago "L". It didn't go above Algebra I.

Trust me, being strong in math isn't going to make or break you as a software engineer. Other skills, such as creative / disciplined thinking, time management, and the ability to work under stress / deadlines are far more important. If you understand object-oriented programming (OOP), I can work with you.

 

[TheMainMan]

I work as a Planning Engineer within the Construction Industry. I probably earn twice what my friends do in other areas. My brother is a trainee lawyer also earning significantly less.

People are drawn to the sexy careers like law but the competition for places and good jobs is immense.

What I love about engineering is the fact that you can travel and work anywhere in the world, something that is a lot harded to do in law due to the the law of the country that you have been trained in.