Oh, to be an engineer

Sometimes while talking with college friends, we joke about how students with different majors lead completely different lifestyles during school. And then we come to the sad realization that a student's choice of major has a huge effect on their personality, actions, and social calendar...and engineers got shafted.

Don't get me wrong, I chose to be an engineer and was given fair warning of the workload to come. But what I wasn't warned about was how all the non-science majors would spend their warm spring days out by the pool and cold wintry days out in the snow during the semester. And I would get to watch them through my bedroom window, as I suppressed a twitch that had been building from the lack of sleep for the past several months.

Whatever though. People do what they want, and it's not my place to go "Everyone sucks because they don't work as hard as engineers." Because in many cases, that isn't true.

My real reason for bringing up the topic of majors and lifestyles is that fact that I've accumulated a list of behaviors I catch myself doing that I'm certain non-engineers (and sometimes just non-science majors) don't do. Here are a few that some of you fellow engineers might identify with:

- I get frustrated when I can't rotate things in 3-D on my computer by clicking and dragging. Case-in-point, when I tried to rotate this blog page to get to my email. And it didn't work. And for several seconds I thought there was something seriously wrong with my computer.

- I think it's completely normal to go to bed at 2 or 3 AM. During the school year, I will actually plan my nights up to 3:30AM, and then think "but I need to go to bed by 4." Which leads us to...

- Getting only 4 hours of sleep a night no longer bothers me. If I get 6, I'm happy. If it's 8 or more, I either just took an exam or I'm on break.

- I think going out more than once a week is excessive. I will usually argue with anyone who tries to convince me otherwise because "I have too much work. I need to do work. LET ME DO WORK." Although there are cases where I throw a "oh hell" and just go out again. This almost always turns out to be a bad idea though.

- Over- and under-eating happens. It's normal. During finals week, I will either A.) Forget that my body needs food, or B.) Buy a bucket of cookie dough. Surprisingly, neither option ends well.

- I get a supreme sense of joy from completing any problem with calculus. If calculus was a person, I would marry it. And we would lie tangent to each other's curves all night...

- I've had dreams that I forgot my TI-84 Plus and didn't have it for class. And these dreams were actually nightmares. To the point where I woke up in a cold sweat. Also, when I do forget my calculator somewhere, I suddenly feel naked and extremely paranoid that someone will jump out of the bushes and ask me to perform intense calculations. This is not a joke.

- At least half of the conversations I have with fellow engineers are about science, math, or engineering. Almost any philosophical conversation we have will turn into something scientific. Conversations that involve being social will die or just don't exist. Usually, they'll trail-off in a series of mumbles and awkward feet shuffling.

- Dating means I have less time for engineering. And, honestly, it scares me. I'm already married to my major, and I have a hard enough time keeping it happy.

Those are just a few, although if you ask any engineer I'm sure they could give you quite a bit more.


Note to all the engineers: I'm in the process of coming up with a gang-sign. It will probably involve a graphing calculator or pi.

"Hyperbo-WHAT UP FOO'S?!"
*shiny calculators around our necks gleam in the sun*