Reassessing engineers

At a meeting for an activist group I participate in, we had to go around the circle introducing ourselves. “Hi, my name is Mark, CC junior, studying international politics.” “Hey, I’m Laura, Barnard sophomore, studying linguistics.” Everyone nods along, instantly forgetting the name they just heard. Then their eyes fall on me: “Hi guys, my name’s Hilary, SEAS freshman, studying electrical engineering.” Now, not only are eyes fixated on me, but mouths are agape. “Really? You’re a SEAS kid?” one asks.

Once more, I’ll say, “Yeah. Really. I’m a SEAS kid.”

The SEAS kid archetype. More jokes are made about us than about the Barnard women, but they are less-addressed and protested. There’s this expectation that every engineering student fits a certain model of the engineering student who only attends preprofessional clubs and is considered “nerdy.”

Is it that entirely unbelievable that someone like me could perhaps be interested in something besides getting a job? Maybe I’m someone who is not up all night working on a Java program, but on a University Writing piece I really care about, or stage-managing a musical.

Before my junior year of high school, my career goals included being a film critic, a novelist, a musician, and a Latin teacher. Then, when I took physics and calculus in high school, it became clear my career path was engineering. Some confusion and dull pangs of anger came upon me when, after complaining about how my schedule didn’t allow me to take Lit Hum, my friends would say: “Wow, SEAS kids can read?”

Of course it’s just a joke. But the joke implies that there is this consensus among non-SEAS students that engineers are not interested in the humanities. They seem to forget that many of us have other uses for our brains. They find it completely irrational that we could have an interest in anything besides the applied sciences.

Sometimes, the jokes are funny, though in small doses. I know that I have left a few of the many informal debates that occur in my floor lounge in good humor by saying, “What do I know, I’m just a SEAS kid, and I need to go program a text-based poker game. See you guys.” Yes, we do have a huge workload that we can lose ourselves in, but we’re not alone in that respect.

Premed students and other non-SEAS science majors have just as many requirements, but they get little of the flak directed at SEAS students. They take the dreaded organic chemistry exam that brings the marching band into the library right before finals. I have premed friends in CC who pull so many all-nighters that I worry whether they are getting enough REM sleep. I happen to see CC physics majors in many of my classes. And when we attend club events together, they get no questions; no one wonders what they are doing out of lab.

However, what makes the least sense to me, and vexes me the most, is when people are shocked to see an engineering student in an activist club.

We’re not just walking, talking TI-89s. Surprisingly enough, we have lives outside of the library that don’t have to do with Matlab. A little less shock when someone who takes Gateway instead of Lit Hum happens to be active in the Columbia Democrats would be greatly appreciated. All it takes is the understanding that we are people with many dimensions to our lives.

Hilary Mogul is a School of Engineering and Applied Science first-year.