It is common among engineering students to complain how hard the course is, and that we are all so tired of studying. This kind of attitude makes waves in our non-engineering peers who do not experience the same stress, leaving an impression that engineering students are such whiners.
Let me be clear: engineering students have the right to complain because, in case you missed it, engineering is hard!
Nobody ever wants to experience spending long nights for an important exam, for a laboratory report, for an assignment, which damages our social lives and sleeping patterns in the long run.
Nobody ever likes to be screamed at by terror professors, or get called at in a recitation about a formula you never have encountered before.
Nobody ever wishes to live the stressful kind of life that happens when one studies engineering. Engineering school is a house full of stress.
In detail, here are more reasons why it sucks to be an engineering student, and why we think that engineering is hard:
Terrible materials to study
Engineering is a technical field, which makes it hard for us to study the boring and thick materials that we have to study. The books filled with equations and symbols could never ignite an inspiration, but instead breeds confusion. There is no spice in studying them because it can get really tiring especially when there are several subjects in a semester.
Photo via Pinterest
It’s a consolation, however, that the professor presents the subject differently than how the book tells it. But when you are let to self-study a material in awful textbooks, that’s where we whine about not wanting to study.
Professors barely encourage the students
Some professors just march in their classrooms with a straight face and get the job done at minimum, without ever thinking how that affects the learning attitude of their students.
It also pays to have an inspiring atmosphere when teaching to encourage the students a little more. But no, we rarely have that kind of professor. When we have, it only comes by once in a blue moon.
No counselling of work trends
Engineering students who are trained to become engineers are barely aware of the career opportunities because such are not taught in college. Even resume writing is difficult because the curriculum is not designed to cater to pre-employment needs.
Not so much is provided to graduating students but fliers and checklists. Career guidance and work trends are also critical for fresh engineers.
Other disciplines appear to be easier
Of course it’s easy for engineering students to conclude that if our course is hard, other courses must be easier. This is evident when our liberal arts majors friends get the best grades despite knowing them as slackers, while the brilliant engineering students just manage to earn okay grades, some even failing. Students in other disciplines find it easy to top the exams while engineering students squeeze their brains out only to become mediocre students. It sucks. And it seems unfair.
Photo via The Wire
Every post-exam and post-assignment feeling is the same
Yes, I know we are supposed to study maths and physics, but it’s also tiring that it’s all the same feeling every after we finish an assignment or an exam – drained, because we think about so many formulas and numbers; and oblivious, because no one knows if we are doing the problems correctly.
It’s frustrating to feel this uncertainty, but somehow consoling that it is a universal feeling among engineering students. But still, it’s a torture. And we get so much stress from that.
To conclude, if you are an engineering student and find yourself posting a Facebook status or a tweet that displays your engineering school whines, do not hesitate. Because you have the right to complain that engineering is hard!
