By Assoah Ndomo | Photographer
For as long as I have been alive, “smart people” have been described as “antisocial” and “weird”. This is not entirely true in my experience as an engineering student, so because it’s my major, I will use engineers as an example.
Many times, when I tell someone I’m an engineering major, they’re surprised given my outgoing personality. Instead of an, “Oh, that’s cool,” I get a, “Are you for real?”
Every time I hear that response, I look at the engineers around me more closely to see if we are really that antisocial. After three years of being an engineer, I can confidently say that the outside world has every right to believe that.
Engineering is literally a major for people who do math and physics every day. If you ask any engineer why we continue to do it, most of them will shrug their shoulders.
Engineers are not antisocial. Most of us just go through so much pain and stress there is no point in speaking to people if there is no need to. We wake up at 8 a.m. and go through universally-detested classes, such as calculus and every other math class to ever exist, and we do that Monday through Friday.
Some people take up a minor just so they get out of the cycle. I, personally, picked up business.
It comes to the point where we only socialize with each other because we are the only people who can understand our obscure schedules. But here’s the catch — when we do decide to go outside, we are outside.
I promise you, when engineers are out and about, you will hardly see someone so happy to be surrounded by people. We try to let all of the stress out we endured during the week when we socialize.
If you originally thought engineering students weren’t worth the time to get to know, I hope this changes your mind.
We still like to play sports, spend time with friends, get outside and smile. So, next time you see your engineering friend, give them a nice “hello”. It will mean the world to them.
