35 Things Every Engineer Has To Deal With In College

35 Things Every Engineer Has To Deal 

With In College

1. Finishing an essay for a liberal arts 

class and realizing 

that you’re drastically under the page 

requirement.

Sorry I’ve been trained to be a master of efficiency.

2. Getting your first exam back after 

thinking you could 

study for it like you studied for tests in 

high school.

3. And then waking up extremely 

disoriented from an accidental nap in the 

lab. Because you pulled two consecutive 

all-nighters studying for your next one.

4. Your code/report/major project is due 

soon and is not, in any way, working like 

it’s supposed to.

Ten hours before the deadline:

Five hours before the deadline:

An hour before the deadline:

Presenting it to your professor:

5. Somebody casually mentioning they 

really enjoyed a class that single-

handedly destroyed your social life, self-

esteem, and GPA in one nightmarish 

swoop.

Even though you’ve definitely been on the other side of 

the issue.

6. Developing a finely tuned sense of 

hearing that can recognize the words 

“free 

food” being spoken from anywhere within 

a 100-foot radius.

7. The periodic realization that you’ve 

been working on the same lab report for 

seven consecutive hours and you’re 

nowhere near the end.

8. All of your family and friends suddenly 

require your advice on how to do anything 

remotely related to household repairs or 

math.

9. Which you feel smart about… Until 

you’re forced to do a project in some 

archaic coding language you’re pretty 

sure was delivered to Earth on a stone 

tablet from an alien planet where 

NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE.

But really.

10. Although you finally get your code to 

work for reasons that remain completely 

unknown to you.

/woman.

11. You’ve had the professor 

who literally wrote the book on 

electrical engineering yet has not 

mastered the complex science of turning 

on the overhead projector without a major 

incident.

12. And the professor who built the lunar 

module, developed a lifesaving medical 

device, or made some other dauntingly 

significant contribution to humanity.

13. People in your humanities classes 

talk 

about their plans to go out to the bars on 

an average Tuesday when YOU SPENT 

YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY IN THE 

COMPUTER 

LAB, DAMN IT.

14. Although you do really take pride in 

your work ethic, despite your complaining.

15. You’re slightly delighted when that 

one 

overzealous kid in your 8 a.m. lecture 

finally answers a professor’s question 

incorrectly.

Sorry, it’s just too early for that.

16. Nothing in life escalates quite as 

quickly as the level of material taught 

during syllabus week.

Day 1:

Day 2:

17. You’re filled with an impending sense 

of doom when you realize that each of the 

three questions on your homework set 

has multiple, lettered parts to it.

18. Most of your exams end up pretty 

much the same way.

19. And you’ve turned in a final or two 

that 

covered nothing you ever studied in class.

But you felt much better about your life a week later 

when you found out that the average was a 35%.

20. Although you know there’s no fiercer 

moment than an “I just ACED that test” 

moment.

21. You partially believe the common (if 

not blatantly incorrect) perception that 

your friends in non-science majors don’t 

do any actual work.

We’re 99% sure that this is an accurate representation of 

most fine arts classes.

22. You can literally solve partial 

differentials in your sleep.

And you don’t know whether to laugh or cry about it.

23. If you’re female, you’ve been the only 

girl in a class of 50 at least once in your 

college career.

And rocked it.

24. If you’re male, you’ve seriously 

wondered whether girls are, in fact, 

largely mythical.

25. A four-plus-hour lab class is 

somehow 

worth one credit.

Does not compute.

26. Engineers have no social skills, you 

say?

27. Although you can kind of see the point.

You realize that trying to explain any 

scientific concept without sounding too 

nerdy is almost impossible:

And you’ve definitely been to a few parties that closely 

resembled this:

28. You have a designated table in the 

library and are pretty territorial about it.

29. Somebody suggests you eat a meal 

with some semblance of nutritional 

balance. Or anything that’s not pizza, 

really.

If you are what you eat, then I’m not a pizza man. I’m a 

pizza, MAN.

30. You’ve made formula sheets that 

could 

probably be considered pieces of fine art.

31. You’ve had at least one semester that 

started out manageable but quickly got 

away from you.

(It was probably the same semester your friends tried to 

warn you that taking 18 credits AND having a job was 

going to be a bad time.)

32. It doesn’t really matter, though, 

because toward the end of ANY semester, 

sleep (and a bed consisting of something 

other than your face on a keyboard) is for 

the weak.

33. You hear endless stories from the old-

school engineers at your summer 

internship who “didn’t have 

computers/calculators/electricity” back 

when they were in school.

Technological progress is kinda the POINT of 

engineering, bro.

34. You know firsthand what people are 

talking about when they say an 

engineering education is a huge 

investment.

And we’re not just talking about money.

35. But you’re doing what you love, and 

can’t imagine it any other way.

Besides, once you walk across that stage with your 

degree, is there anything you CAN’T do?