Being and Engineering Student Sucks

An here is why:

5. Awful Textbooks
Thick, dry, black and white manuscripts are rarely a source of inspiration and sometimes can cause loads of confusion. Often, the text is poorly written and interrupted by lengthy equations with symbols that are different from those used by the professor during lectures.

4. Professors are Rarely Encouraging
During each class, a professor that would rather be tending to his research will waltz up to a blackboard or overhead projector and scribble out equations for an hour without uttering a single sentence to create some excitement.

3. Dearth of Quality Counseling
College students may not have a sense for how to build their resume and they might be clueless about the variety of career opportunities that await them. Unfortunately, some academic advisers do little more than post fliers about internships and hand out a checklist of classes to take. They should make some projections about the future job market, learn about the interests of each young scholar, and offer them tailored advice for how to best prepare themselves.

2. Other Disciplines Have Inflated Grades
Brilliant engineering students may earn surprisingly low grades while slackers in other departments score straight As for writing book reports and throwing together papers about their favorite zombie films.

Some professors view undergraduate education as a type of natural selection, but their analogy is flawed. Many of the brightest students may struggle while mediocre scholars can earn top scores because they have a larger group of supportive friends to or more time to dedicate to studying.

1. Every Assignment Feels the Same
Nearly every homework assignment and test question is a math problem. Only a few courses require creativity or offer hands-on experience.

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 Life, WPI

4 Comments to Being and Engineering Student Sucks

  1. 5-3: Know what engineering school teaches you? That no one is holding your hand. You either figure something out on your own or you fail. Boo hoo.

    2: Since when do engineers compete with film majors?

    1: That really depends on your major. I’m in mechanical design, so I get a lot of creative freedom to make a lot of cool stuff. I’ve met plenty of guys who just analyze data all day, though… It’s very sad.

  2. Explodicle on March 25th, 2008
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  3. Justin makes a good point about hand holding. If you haven’t learned it by college, it sure is made apparent that no one can do this for you. When you have done a good job you can feel genuinely satisfied.

  4. jewboy on March 30th, 2008
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  5. I think we had the luxury of going to a tech school where there was less of the bad and more of the good that comes from everyone being in a similar boat.

  6. Parallax on March 31st, 2008
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  7. Agreed. Overall, I enjoyed the challenges at WPI. My better moments and triumphs during my academic career, I remember sharing them with fellow students. Then again, there was that nightmare that dared call himself my MQP partner.

  8. jewboy on March 31st, 2008
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