<p>Just a topic for fun. What are some common misconceptions held by the public about engineers or engineering? A lot of people I have met have an inaccurate / skewed idea of the profession. I'll start with the most common misconception - "all engineers are geeky and have horrible communication skills." Totally not true. What else is there?</p>
<p>As I said in an earlier thread, there is this assumption that majoring in CS is a one-way ticket to Millionaireville. All those software billionaires of the 80s, 90s, and 00s have convinced people who know less than nothing about computers that anybody involved in computers is a wealthy nerd. I’ve heard many variations of “wow, you’re gonna be rich!” when I told people I was majoring in CSE (switched to physics my freshman year, with a CS minor).</p>
<p>Even though I’m not a mechE, I love classical mechanics and a pet peeve of mine is people thinking mechanical engineering majors are going to be car mechanics.</p>
<p>A stereotype exists that chemistry/chemE majors all want to make bombs (yet no stereotype exists that all aero majors want to make missiles…even though a lot of them do!).</p>
<p>Civil engineers all wear button up shirts with ties, safety goggles, a hard hat, and carry around blue prints (just like all physicists wear white lab coats and carry clip boards).</p>
<p>Bit of engineering history: this isn’t so much a stereotype as the truth, engineers used to be associated with sliderules, like how stethoscopes are associated with physicians, so before the calculator-in-the-breast-pocket-with-protector stereotype got off the ground, everybody had a mental image of an engineer as a guy with a sliderule.</p>
<p>Electrical engineers are electricians/line men.</p>
<p>All engineers are skinny nerds and have high voices, hiked up pants, acne, suspenders, button-up shirts, a pocket protector in the breast pocket with pens and a calculator, big thick glasses taped together at the nose, are overly verbose when describing things (saying “hand me -i^2 of those pressed wood pulp planes manufactured for grooming purposes please” instead of “hand me a tissue please”), and have no girlfriends.</p>
<p>Almost nobody actually meets that stereotype, I wonder if it was ever true. Some of the faculty I see it in, so I think it may have been true once upon a time. I’ve only ever met one person who had the stereotypical “nerd voice” and I think he was autistic. There are a lot more “jock” types in engineering than an outsider might think.</p>
<p>A stereotype about CS students is that they are overweight and have never touched a girl. Actually, this one is true a lot. Look at the butthurt dweller meme. I’ve met that guy multiple times.</p>
<p>First of all, I just want to say that is a fantastic post. It sums up a good amount of engineering stereotypes. About the “All electrical engineers are electricians/line men” - I have a friend who is going to major in EE and a girl in my Algebra II class last year referred to my to-be-EE friend as an “electrician”. He almost flipped the shiznit out. I don’t think the CS student stereotype is as accurate as it once was. I’m majoring in CS, but I’m not overweight or underweight (170 pounds and 5’11), or addicted to video games, unshaven, or have horrible acne. I definitely can be overly verbose at times, though, but not as bad as using -i^2 in daily conversation. I honestly don’t think anyone would do that. One thing about most engineers that I DO think is true that I’ve noticed is that they tend to love puns and ironic jokes, especially math-y or science-y ones. Here’s an example:</p>
<pre><code> A physicist, a biologist and a mathematician are sitting in a street caf
</code></pre>
<p>LOL at tomservo post. Most engineers are nerds and that’s pretty much a fact. The CS description isnt accurate. They are all type of people fat, skinny, tall, short but they all have something in common: nerdyness lol.</p>
<p>I consider “nerdiness” less of an aesthetic description and more of an eagerness to learn, specifically about STEM topics. For example, a “nerd” would rather be on the robotics team than the basketball team (not saying there can’t be nerds playing basketball). A “nerd” would spend a Saturday making Linux hacks rather than getting messed up at a party. And, yes, I consider “nerd” a complement of sorts, when used the right way.</p>
<p>Damn right, most Engineering students are nerds, that is not even a stereotype, it is reality and I don’t see anything cool about being a nerd. </p>
<p>Many of the stereotypical Engineering students that I have interacted with in my classes make me cringe, they are so obsessed with details, to a level where I just want to say “Dude, shut the hell up!”</p>
<p>Many people think that Engineering students are naturally smart but many are people with borderline or full blown Asperger’s syndrome.</p>
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<p>But do you know how to use one?</p>
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<p>[Wired</a> 9.12: The Geek Syndrome](<a href=“http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers_pr.html]Wired”>The Geek Syndrome | WIRED) may be relevant.</p>
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<p>But there is some controversy: [Scientists</a> and autism: When geeks meet : Nature News](<a href=“http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479025a.html]Scientists”>http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479025a.html)</p>
<p>^^^ physicist/biologist/mathematician joke was hilarious! :D</p>
<p>It was spring of 1985 when we hit a social inflection point in greater nerddom. Every year, RPI would print a booklet of the incoming freshman, complete with their senior picture, hometown, and intended major. There was a long tradition of getting a group together, going through the book playing “Spot the EE.” This could be done with remarkable accuracy.</p>
<p>In 1985, though, we noticed that more than half of our selections were CS majors. The game changed from then on to “Spot the Comp Sci.” So class of 1988 and earlier, EE was the nerdiest, 1989 and later belong to the CSes.</p>
<p>I had to read the physicist/biologist/mathematician joke a second time before I got it. Should I still consider going into engineering?? :S lol</p>
<p>I am such a engineering nerd-- everytime I read that joke, it makes me lol</p>
<p>@TomServo</p>
<p>I would just like to clear up a misconception about glasses: the stereotypical tape at the bridge of a nerd’s glasses is not there to hold broken glasses together. It’s there to provide friction at the bridge of the nose. Presumably so our plastic frame glasses don’t slip off of our greasy, greasy pizza faces.</p>
<p>Also only farsighted engineers burn ants.</p>
<p>I think the public has been brainwashed into thinking that “engineer = always employed”. Even President Obama made the mistake on one of those Google+ hangouts a year or two ago, where Darin Wedel, a semiconductor engineer, sent his resume to many companies and couldn’t even get an interview.</p>
<p>Its fairly obvious looking at the stats that there is a very high levels of engineering unemployment. A lot of it gets masked in the statistics though (ie: an engineer who can only find a job delivering pizzas isn’t classified as an unemployed engineer, but rather, an employed pizza driver!). </p>
<p>Also, the news articles correctly state that engineering has high starting salaries. But they never tell people that most engineers hit a ceiling relatively quickly in their careers.</p>
<p>This conversation that shows major stereotyping
Me: Dad, I want to be an mechanical engineer
Dad: What do you want to fix cars or something you don’t even know how to open a hood
Me: Dad mechanical engineers don’t fix cars they…(explained all the various things mech engineers do)</p>
<p>to this day when I bring up the fact that I want to be a mechanical engineer, my dad still brings up the fact that I don’t like cars even though I have explained to him a million times that they don’t</p>
<p>To expand on the idea of people not knowing what a particular engineer does, I have to be constantly explaining to people what Industrial Engineering is and how it deals with optimization, systems engineering and process improvement.</p>
<p>Many people seem to think that Industrial Engineers are like Civil Engineers that build factories.</p>
<p>^ That’s a good one, but understandable. </p>
<p>People seem to think engineers are unattractive.</p>