21 things only engineering students will understand

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So you study Engineering – arguably one of the hardest higher education programmes around, but it’s totally all worth it when you graduate with ultimate respect and a golden key to the best jobs on the market. After years of intense study, brain-cracking exams and shaky expectations, you’ve made it to the end and are now a certified Engineer. Whether you specialise in the mechanical, aeronautical, electrical, computer, environmental, industrial or civil area of the field, you can beam with pride as you declare your well-earned, legitimate career.

Now…if only you could stop taking things apart just so you can prove that you can put it back together, and as soon as you learn to explain in simple terms exactly what it is you do, people might finally come to terms with the fact that you are actually one of our very own species…

Here are some things only those who’ve studied Engineering can truly understand:

1. Hearing your friends complain about their workload as your desk groans from the burden of a million unfinished papers…

2. Relying so much on regular doses of caffeine that you skipped asking her out and just made it straight Facebook official…

3. The horror of that first exam when you thought playing it casual, like high school, would be enough to get you through…

4. You think back fondly on an easier time when maths actually involved numbers…

5. The first day of class – every seat is taken. First day of the second week – half the seats are empty. Fourth week of term and it’s time for the first assignment – you wish those weak deserters had taken you down with them…

6. Like an urge you just can’t control, you love love love to build things…

7. …Just to destroy it all later!

8. Calling a girl tanC/sanC = (sexy) and knowing that no one has a clue what you’re on about, but still feeling smug that you slipped your knowledge of trig into such an unlikely social situation…

9. Working for two days straight to finish that assignment and waking in the lab without a clue what year it is…

10. Hearing somone mention how much they loved a module that destroyed your self esteem, your mental capabilities and your social life in one solid swoop and cursing them for opening a can of very emotional worms…

11. Finishing the group work 7 minutes before class starts because you spend all your time trying to fix appliances that aren’t broken so the group pulled an all-nighter to get it done…

12. When someone asks you a simple question and you can’t help but fill the answer with senseless jargon and unnecessary complexities…

13. The horror of working on an assignment for nine hours straight, only to discover that you’ve barely made a dent in that traumatising word count…

14. The Wi-Fi goes down in your Halls of Residence and suddenly you’re the expert…

15. Of course, you are the expert. You could help them, but you’d rather watch them squirm…

16. When someone asks about your work, it takes approximately 40 seconds of explanation for them to start backing away slowly as they look at you like you’re a complete nutter…

17. That one lecturer who has written countless books on Engineering, is a complete and utter genius, yet he still gets your name wrong after three long years despite having it written in front of him right from the start of the lecture…

18. The intensity of your university experience meant you despised any student who had a life…

 

19. Your friends who study the arts tell you what they do in class, but this is all you can picture…

20. Being a female Engineering student and being the only girl in the class for the past three years…

 

21. People too often think you know everything, but really, you’re just an Engineer…

Image via Flickr

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