<p>Give one characteristic that engineers usually have in common.</p>
<p>Good problem solvers. Really good.</p>
<p>there are many kinds of problems :p</p>
<ol>
<li>Intelligent.</li>
<li>Good looking.</li>
<li>Great with women.</li>
</ol>
<p>Oh wait…nevermind.</p>
<p>Unfunny and uninteresting.</p>
<p>I generally think engineers are much more interesting than most people, simply because they are far more intelligent than average.</p>
<p>which is better bio engineering or mechanical engineering? personnally I think bio:)</p>
<p>I know a lot of math majors. They are stunningly intelligent, but few are interesting. I find this to be a reasonable sample of the general population.
My point is, intelligence does not imply an interesting character.</p>
<p>inquisitive</p>
<p>Excellent quantitative skills.</p>
<p>“I know a lot of math majors. They are stunningly intelligent, but few are interesting.”
- Every math major I’ve ever known has been interesting. The intelligence varies, but there’s something that’s just exquisitely quirky about someone who is good at math and sticks with math and doesn’t sell out to engineering. Just an observation.</p>
<p>I tend to find engineers a little dry. I find that the majors that attract interesting people are architecture, math, and philosophy. I’ve known a lot of those majors to be fascinating people.</p>
<p>We may have different ideas of what “interesting” entails. This is a moot discussion in any case.</p>
<p>But I’d agree that those three fields are filled with interesting people and I’d extend it to most liberal arts.</p>
<p>Actually, I extend it to fields where people do what they want because they enjoy it, and not “sell out” fields like engineering as you’ve wonderfully put it.</p>
<p>A little on the know-it-all side.</p>
<p>Such negative descriptions except for just being “intelligent!”</p>
<p>Shows determination.</p>
<p>I take offense to reffering to engineers as “sell outs”. Some people become engineers because thats what they actually want to do, and they would do it even if it payed poorly.</p>
<p>it does pay poorly compared to the work you do</p>
<p>I think that the defining characteristic of engineers is that they’ve learned to see the world as just a series of solvable components.</p>
<p>It takes determination to do that, it takes intelligence to do that, and yeah, they’re not paid as well, but those things apply to a lot of other fields, too. They can apply to pretty much anything–it will take determination for me to be able to play Painkiller by Judas Priest left-handed on Expert mode; it will take intelligence for me to solve the Sunday morning NY Times crossword puzzle if I’m only given the clues and not the grid; being a janitor during a food poisoning epidemic at the local elementary school pays poorly compared to the work you do. I think that the ability of engineers to see a situation and break it down into individual, smaller, solvable elements is what makes them uniquely engineers (along with a compulsion to solve said problems…). To the outside observer, it makes them look really intelligent, but there’s no real magic to it. It’s just breaking things down into solvable problems, and training your brain to be able to do that.</p>
<p>(Incidentally, I think that’s also why the stereotypes persist of the socially-inept male engineer… Try breakin’ a woman down as a series of solvable components and see how well you do there, Ace.)</p>
<p>Boring…If I had to hang out with some of the people in my class I would probably kill myself.</p>
<p>"Boring…If I had to hang out with some of the people in my class I would probably kill myself. "
- Seconded (CS).</p>