Challenges faced as an Engineer or Engineering Student Response

So the last couple of weeks I asked about some of the challenges people faced as an engineer or engineering student? I also asked how did they overcome and get through these challenges? Here are some of the responses from the people who follow this blog and the facebook page.

Getting thru Purdue's most dreaded weedout sophomore courses, ME 200 (Thermo I) and EE 201 (Linear Circuits I).......amazingly both with A's! I was just darn lucky with Thermo due to the fact that I had a very articulate, younger post-doc instructor who was very adept at combining both technical and lay speak during lectures. Otherwise, the biggest challenge is balancing perseverance with the extracirriculars.....and trying not to let the epicurean 4.0 Liberal Arts wussies bother yah as much. Tom Engelsman

Had to talk to a woman once........still recovering. Clay Feldner

I sat in class, consumed copious amounts of caffeine and payed as much attention to my professors as I possibly could. Knowing that I wasn't the only person who wanted to make it through our courses I took the time to reteach the subject matter and go through examples with my other classmates. In my program we have our own Facebook page ironically, even while I'm at work, I walk around my McDonald's with my calculous textbook and fluids work book working through examples and Sharing thought processes on every second of down time I have. Sleep deprivation this semester is really brutal and I can't wait for the end of this week. It's disappointing knowing that a lot of my friends aren't going to make it to next semester. Andrew Lukachko

Engineering - Let Me Sleep by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Lack of sleep!? Seriously though, i have a hard time with group work - mostly because someone in my groups always has " something come up" thats more important or uses their backyard experience instead of using engineering practices.... Waste of the rest of our times...Michelle Gesh

I am a mechanical engineering student at a maritime school. On top of the mechanical course load we take requiring courses to sit for the coast guard engine license to operate shipboard plants. The course load is typically 21+ credits per term, and the summers are spent at sea operating a training ship or doing an internship at sea. The hardest thing is just keeping up. Seth Kaye

Trying to comprehend the subject while trying to understand the extremely THICK accent of the professor. it's quite a torture. Cory Chorne Over coming self doubts wondering if I was smart enough. I had a very challenging professor for Calculus 291 - Multivariable Calculus. Our professor required an essay with each homework problem and every test question. After the first exam and 80 percent of the class bombing it, there was a near riot the next class with students complaining his course was too hard. He calmly rolled up his sleeve and showed the class the identification number tattoo the Germans gave him during World War Ii. The only thing he said to the class was "You don't know what hard is". The class sat in stunned silence with most dropping the class shortly thereafter. Thank you Professor Fred Haring for putting things into proper perspective for me. After that life lesson, engineering seemed pretty easy. Hugues Dorzeus

Hard classes with no available outside help, classmates who give up and drop out every semester, teachers with thick accents, peers who don't understand what your major is like, having to balance study, work, and sanity, and still trying to live life as a normal teenage girl. Alexandra Hope Murray

During my sophomore year, I thought I was gonna fail my last quarter of engineering physics. My grade without the final exam was a D+. I think my problem was I was so shy to ask my instructor for help. So a few days before our final exam, I finally decided to go to my instructor and ask for help. He explained everything to me and I finally understand it! When I took my final exam, I felt that I did pretty good. I never find out what my final exam score was, but I got a B- for my engineering physics 3. Julius Ceasar Arevalo

For most of the engineering subjects its visualizable so it was easier, but EE was tough. You need to stop over thinking and use pure logic for the most part. Best way I can tell you how to overcome, don't memorize, try to understand how things come to be, especially formulae, the derivation is so important to understand. Laurie Bynum Caffeine.... And lots of micro-meltdowns that are overcome by an all-encompassing sense of accomplishment when I see my GPA. The struggle makes victory that much sweeter. Ian Goh

Lack of females in my classes. No getting through that....literally. Kevin Burke

Yep Engineering can be tough, but one should never give up because of that reason! There will be good and bad times, but in the end it will be worth it!

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Difficult and Challenging Engineering Courses

Have you ever taken a course in engineering that you just could not understand? A course you barely passed and you still didn't know what was going? I have had that problem before. I passed the course thanks to scaling and projects!

How I Feel about These Engineering Courses

The course I had trouble with was Control System Design, under electrical engineering. It was taken in my final year and I thought I would like the course. I thought it would be very useful for when I graduated and started working in the industry. I took a course before it called systems and control. It involved a lot of math (laplace transform), state-space analysis, root-locus method, frequency domain analysis etc etc. That course was fairly easy ( I believe my professor was pretty 'chill'). So I was like okay I did fairly good in this course so why not take Control System Design in my final year! Bad idea!

At the start of this course I was doing alright. We were learning about PID control, PID tuning, and pole placements. That wasn't too bad,but then we moved into more advance topics and I just started getting lost.

We then started talking about the fundamental limitations of control design, control architecture, MIMO analysis, decentralized control, and decoupling control. I was so lost in the course. I think the professor was not teaching it properly or I just couldn't grasp the concepts. The text book we were using didn't help either. The textbook was called Control System Design by Graham C. Goodwin (Author), Stefan F. Graebe (Author), Mario E. Salgado (Author). I tried reading the chapters over and over trying get a better understanding of the material.

Trollception by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://engineermemes.blogspot.ca.

I found out I wasn't the only one who was finding it hard to learn the course material. A lot of my other classmates were having trouble as well. I think another problem that made it hard for us was there were no assignments. There were only 3 midterms (worth 25% each) and a final project (25%). There was no final. However, he did give us 1-3 past midterms for each midterm we had. He also allowed a single sided cheat sheet for the midterms. Those cheat sheets did not help at all. You really had to fully understand the course material if you wanted to do well.

Anyways, have you been in a similar situation? Is there an engineering course you took that you thought would be useful, but ended up not being useful and very challenging? Is there a course you passed with flying colours, but you still don't understand the material? If you answered any of these questions or want to share your experiences, feel free to leave a comment!

Fully Comprehend this Unit by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://engineermemes.blogspot.ca

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Wait...you're studying what?

This is a guest blog post by Niko Temofeew. He is currently a Sophomore studying Biomedical Engineering at Saint Louis University. This is what he had to say about people reacting to what he majored in and why he chose to go into engineering.

It was the summer before I started college. I was working two jobs to save money and to get some experience. I worked at a pediatrician's office as a medical assistant. For the longest time I wanted to be a doctor like my dad. After working in the office though, I realized the office setting was a little too slow for me. I needed something that fascinated me more. It was a month before school started that I ran into Biomedical Engineering and what it was all about (little did I know there was much more to it).

Fast forward to move-in day. All kinds of name-games and ice-breakers to get everyone on your floor to be social and talk to each other. Of course, like any college ice-breaker, whoever was running the show would say something like, "Okay we are going to start with your name, where you're from, your major, and something unique about yourself!" Someone started and the information flowed. "Hi my name is Jim, I'm from Boston, Massachusetts, I am majoring in Accounting and…what was the last one? Oh yea, and I was a stunt double in a Hollywood movie when I was 15." People continued to announce their names and other information with some cracking jokes while others were quite and nervous.

Finally it was my turn. I recited my name, hometown, major, and "unique fact." However, to my surprise it was my major that riled up a response. I received a few odd looks and even an "Oh wow…" I wasn't quite sure how to take this so I ignored it. But it continued to happen whenever people heard of my major. They said it was "the hardest major on campus." As I soon came to realize, it was pretty tough. After two semesters we lost 20% of our original class of 60.

Though I didn't understand before hand, I now understand that engineering of any kind is difficult and is definitely not for everyone. But I chose it for a reason and I'm sticking to it. I've made it this far (about to finish my third semester) and don't plan on looking back. So bring on the math, physics, engineering, and biology because its what I am interested in. If engineering is what you're interested in, don't let predispositions scare you away because you may regret it.

If you want to be a guest blogger like Niko Temofeew just message me on the facebook page for details

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TEXTBOOKS

In first year I bought almost all my textbooks.

In second year I bought maybe a quarter of my textbooks.

In third and fourth year I bought one textbook.

I noticed as I went through my engineering degree I never really used my textbook at all. Most of the information I needed I could find online or I could just find a digital copy of the textbook online. I also found reading the textbook was not helpful in preparing me for exams. I found that doing more practice problems was what benefited me the most in succeeding in my midterms and finals.

One thing I thought that was pretty ridiculous was the price of the textbook! Some of the text books the professors wanted us to buy could range either from $80 to $300. I remember buying a textbook in second year that was worth close to $200 I believe. It was a microelectronics by Sedra Smith. I did not use that textbook at all. However, there are times when I did use the textbooks quite often.

In fourth year I bought a textbook for my Semiconductors course. I found this course really interesting and I usually don't enjoy reading things off a computer. So I ended up buying it ($80 I think). I didn't read the textbook as often as I would have liked, but when it came to exam time and midterms I would read the textbook like crazy!

I love how one or two hours before the final exam people read their textbook for the first time and try to learn 100's of pages worth of information. I wonder how much information they actually retain haha.

Another thing I hated was authors who changed the edition of their textbooks. I'm pretty sure they just used a random number generator to randomize their textbook questions and maybe added one or two pages to their textbook to change the page numbers. I'm glad some of my professors said it was okay to use old textbooks. If you plan on buying textbooks try to buy used ones!

Here's a question for the readers. Do you buy your textbooks? Or do you usually find a digital copy or find the information you need online? Also what was the most expensive textbook you have bought?

Engineering Fact - Textbooks by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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Solar Cells

One of the courses I took in my senior year was a semiconductors course. There was one topic I was really interested in and that was solar cells. I will just go over a little bit of what I learned/remember from class.

A solar cell is a semiconductor device that uses the suns radiation to produce electrical energy. Typically a solar cell is a p-n junction diode. This means that the solar cell is a combination of an n-type semiconductor and p-type semiconductor material. The reason why is because the p-n junctions potential energy barriers are formed and this will facilitate the separation of electron-hole pairs(carriers) generated from photons.

One of the important parameters of a solar cell is the band gap energy. The band gap energy is the minimum energy required to excite an electron from the valence to the conduction band. When the electron is excited into the conduction band it is free to participate in conduction. At the same time though, a 'empty' space is left in the valance band (hole) and as electrons move around in the valence band, it looks like the hole is moving. This means the electron and hole participate in conduction.

Now we can learn about carrier concentration. We learned about free carriers above (electrons and holes participating in conduction). We can call the concentration of these carriers the 'intrinisic carrier concentration'. This tells us the number of electrons in the conduction band and the number of holes in the valence band. The number of carriers will depend on the band gap energy and temperature of the material (High band gap energy leads to less carriers). The band gap energy and carrier concentration will be important in determining the solar cells efficiencies.

When we illuminate light onto a solar cell three things occur. It is either absorbed, reflected or nothing happens. Sunlight contains photons and these photons have different energy levels because of their different wavelengths. E=hc/lambda where h represents Planck constant, c represents the speed of light, and lambda represents the wavelength.

Here is a simple way of looking at it.

If the energy of the photon is greater than the band gap energy of the solar cell that means the electron will be excited out of the valence band and into the conduction band. However, the excess energy of the photon is wasted into heat.

If the energy of the photon is less than the band gap energy of the solar cell nothing will happen to the electron.

If the energy of the photon is equal to the band gap energy the electron will be excited out of the valence band and into the conduction band. This is the most ideal case as no energy is wasted into heat.

I hope this info is useful for anyone who wants to start learning solar cells. Note this is just an intro to solar cells and not in depth information. Solar cells can become much more complex when dealing with other factors like recombination and quantum effieciency.

What do you think of solar cells? Do you believe that they will be important in the future as a clean and renewable energy source? Problems that arise now are the cost of production and the amount of land required to use. Furthermore, the effieciency's of solar cells are still low.

Want to learn more? You can learn more about solar cells by going here

Solar Cells and Photovoltaic Education

Is there a topic you want to write about? Wind turbines? Electronics? Feel free to message me on our facebook page!

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Electrical or Computer Engineering?

We all know that in some departments around the world they combine electrical and computer engineering in 2nd year, but after that you gotta choose between the two. Have you ever had troubles choosing between the two? I know for me I had an easy time and chose electrical because I was not a big fan of programming. However, some people may not have an easy time choosing between the two. Some people want to know which one will provide a better career? More money? Or what if I want to do both? Well here's a post by Abraham Chan, a University of British Columbia student in the faculty of applied science. He will share his thoughts of electrical and computer engineering and discuss why he chose the path he did.

This is what he had to say:

Deciding if you should go into Electrical or Computer Engineering?

After completing general engineering courses, students must choose a specific engineering discipline, which will set the direction for academics and perhaps, a future career. Should you find yourself in a tossup between electrical engineering and computer engineering, I hope I can help clarify their differences through my take on the situation.

Electrical and computer engineering programs typically share similar introductory courses in the first year. Courses like circuit analysis and digital logic design are usually required in both programs.

Electrical engineering deals with the application and development of electricity and electromagnetism. On the contrary, computer engineering deals with the application of electricity and software to develop computer systems.

To break things down for you, computer engineering can be described as electrical engineering without power electives and with software courses in its place. Furthermore, electrical engineering can be subdivided into energy systems and nanotechnology sectors whereas computer engineering can be split into hardware and software sectors.

The job market potentials for both fields are continually growing. However, computer engineering opportunities will be more diversified and grow at a faster pace than electrical engineering due to declines in the manufacturing sector and a heightened demand for software application development.

In the end, many electrical engineers will find work in the computer engineering sector and vice versa. The undergraduate programs are designed to give you a broad sense of what it is like in the respective field of study. After all, your upper-level technical electives will be more relevant to a potential employer than a designation on your degree.

Authors Note: At the end of my first year, I knew I was either going to study electrical or computer engineering. While I was interested in circuits, I had also expressed a fondness for programming. As a student determined to attain a future career in engineering, I wanted to choose the appropriate program. I wanted to weigh my options based on a variety of factors such as academic potential, employment opportunity and industry development. As a result, I examined the curriculum for each program. Wary that electrical and computer engineering share a common second year curriculum, I went with electrical engineering knowing that I could switch to computer engineering for third year. Having completed the various second year electrical and software courses, it was clear that my interest lied within computer engineering. I made the change to computer engineering just before third year and I have not regretted since.

This post was written by Abraham Chan, a Computer Engineering Student at the University of British Columbia (CANADA)

Feel free to comment on why you chose the engineering discpline you're in.

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Online Article + Supportive Comments!

So this is kind of old news, but I wanted to update it here on our blog page. As some of you may know, the Huffington Post wrote an article about our facebook page Engineer Memes online

You can find the online article here:

HuffingtonPost News Article about Engineer Memes

I thought this was really cool! I never expected my page to get this kind of attention/exposure especially from a news website like HuffingtonPost! Being an admin of this page has been a lot of fun. The only downside i've seen is that it is really tough to have engineer memes that can make everyone happy. Since I am an electrical engineer it's tough to create memes that other types of engineers can relate too. I have been thinking about looking for other admins who are studying/working in these different fields to help me with the page. The future is still uncertain though and I will have to wait and see what will happen.

At the same time it's great to see some of the people who commented about the page and are really supportive about it! Here are some of the comments I have read:

Although i love your funny memes, some are also motivational and inspiring which i also love...so thanks. Hannah Marie Seeger

You guys make my engineering memories fun. Abdullah Tariq

These memes are getting exponentially more hilarious with each hour I've spent in the library. So they are tending to infinite hilarity at the moment. Emily Beatty

This definitely has to be the best, most funniest page Ive ever seen. Keep it up guys. Sending this message from a lab in my university. Meanwhile in power electronics.....Xain Shah

Hiiiii there! Just wanted to say Awesome page, I can relate :D keep up the good work. Vanisha Mahabier Panday

Your page gave me the inspiration and the motivation because now I know I am not the only one who suffers from engineering. I am surrounded with some jerks from different majors who make me feel like I am the only one who gets fucked in this school. Engineering = awful school but amazing post graduate life and now I'll go back to study :) Karim Fahmi

I'm glad lots of people from around the world are able to enjoy these photos and are able to relate to these pictures. I know I can't make everyone happy, but I am trying my best. As well, if you have memes/pictures you want to share just message me on the fanpage! I welcome all types and will also give you credit for the photo! Thank you for the support! Anyways, I hope everyone had a good weekend and remember to...not drink and derive!

Feel free to leave comments on ways to improve the facebook page or anything you want to say!

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Women in Engineering

So I posted a engineer meme a week ago and it poked fun at how there are no females in Engineering. See picture here:

No Girls in Engineering Meme

A bunch of female engineers commented on the photo about how the photo was false (which is awesome by the way!). It was awesome and very nice to see all these posts by the female engineers on our fan page. It's great to see that there are more females joining engineering and that they are happy with their choice, going into engineering :). So I updated the photo with this meme:

False! There are girls in Engineering...and they're pretty boss!

I hope everyone liked the updated picture. Anyways, the reason why I wanted to make this post is because I wanted to share what some of the females in engineering had to say. I chose several comments from the pictures. Here are some of the comments:

Robotic Engineering. I'm Mexican, I'm studying a semester in France and Engineering rocks. It's not as easy as some other may think it is. We have to face discrimination day after day. But you have to have enough courage to let people know you are able to do the things as well. It's true there's a difference in strength between men and women, but we are using our minds and not our muscles.I really love what I do. Real Engineering. Sandra Bonilla

It'll take a while for us to mix in, it only started being acceptable for women to go to college like 100 years ago. That seems like a while, but 1965 was 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation but was everything equal yet? Quit calling us stupid and singling us out when all we want is a lucrative major in something we're good at and interested in. Stephanie Marin

I'm one of 3 girls in a total of 30-40ish students per class. In the beginning it's a bit hard to fit in, if you are too cocky like i was x3 but then it's just the same or even better. In fact, we engineer girls would be just common girls if it wasn't for the fact that we just decided to ignore what narrow minds think (like oldfashioned people in my home town who think i'm boyish or lesbian, no matter what i'm wearing atm, whenever i say i'm studying electromechanical engineering... like if it had any kind of relation) and chose a path we like/are good at. Each time i like more and more being an engineering student, each time i think about my decision i realize that it was the best for me, i know i wouldn't be happy in another area. Should we allow oldfashioned and non realistic stereotypes to prevent us from turning in engineers if that's what's going to make us happy? Hell no! A huge hug to all my female engineer or soon to be colleagues! Always proud to be an engineer! ;D. Cíntia Fernandes

I am Mexican, and I'm studying Civil Engineering in Manchester. I cannot described in a comment my passion for engineering, but what I can say is Thank you Great Britain, I face no discrimination whatsoever. Plus, last year I received the Civil Engineering school prize for the best grade of the year. I can only look forward to embrace my gender in the feel, by NOT trying to prove anything to anyone and just enjoy what I do best. Cheers! X. Carla Leticia Monck

I find it ironic how many guys want female engineers, but when they meet one (some of them) act as If girls should not belong in a science class. I'm a student for Aerospace Engineering and Political Science, and I'm really tired of some guys questioning my abilities due to my vagina. Which makes no sense. Ninoshka Llontop Lozano

Surprisingly to most I am a female Electronic Engineering Technology major with a concentration in Renewable Energy Engineering Technology. I get all A+ to B grades in all my math and engineering classes. I'm on the path of switching to an ABET accredited school to finish my Bachelors and then take the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam (the FE/EIT) and after going on for my Masters and Doctorate in either Electronic Engineering Technology or Electrical Engineering while pursuing my Professional Engineering License. I can say it is a lot of hard work and a lot of people try to tell me I can't do it but regardless I remain focused and dedicated to help make progress in the field of Engineering because Trust me i'm an Engineer! I <3 Engineering! Angela Lizardi Shephard

Mechanical engineering right here! Already took the FE, currently biting my nails while I wait for my score. Also, I will be one of the first females to graduate from my university's new ME Program this coming May! Besides getting made fun of for my hot pink TI-84 and my tendency to be girly about a lot of other things, being one of the few females in the program isn't bad at all! I deal with the guys and their personalities rather well, I'm a pretty laid back person with a good sense of humor. I'm definitely able to be myself around them without feeling awkward. Oh and thanks for correcting the meme, definitely approve. Amanda Ibañez

It's great to see all these comments by female engineers. I hope you enjoyed reading these comments by other engineers! Maybe it will put things into perspective.

Being a female engineer is just like being an engineer... Oh wait that's because it is just being an engineer! Laura Daniels

Yep, remember that a female and male can become an engineer. Now lets celebrate something we can agree on with this meme. Feel free to comment about what you're thinking!

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Looking for Guest Bloggers

Hi!

Do you like writing and want to talk about your engineering experiences? Is there something you want to inform to the engineering commmunity? Are there causes you believe in like volunteer work done under 'engineers without borders'. Then this blog may be the right place for you! You will not have to commit to this blog(can be a one time thing only if you want) or can write as much as you want!

What kind of posts am I looking for?

Anything that is engineering related. It can be about your experience as an engineer, or an engineering student. It can be about the toughest course you took in engineering. It can be about the skills and qualities you have gained from being an engineer. You can give tips and advices you would want engineers and engineering students to know in school or on the job. You can write about new technology that have came out or products that are currently in research and development. You can talk about projects you have done in school, or clubs you joined like the 'solar car' club. As well, the post can be written in a humourous or serious way. We invite you to use photos/funny memes that can relate to the topic you are writing about, but they are not required.

Currently we have over 300,000 pageviews as of November 8th, 2012.

If you want to write a blog post just message me on our fanpage Engineer Memes

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Life of a Procrastinator

Ok so we have seen the life of an Engineer. Obviously, this picture is giving us too much sleep correct? But have we seen how the life of an engineer who procrastinates goes? I know I had a lot of problems with procrastination. I would rather play videogames, go hang out with friends, watch some t.v. or just do anything that wasn't studying or homework. Well here's how the life of a procrastinator works. We will walk through several gifs and show how their semester is like (it's still missing lots of projects/homework/quizes/midterms/finals etc etc).

New Semester

After the 1st week

After the 2nd week

Before the midterm

During the midterm

After the midterm

Before the final exam

The final exam schedule is out

7 days before the final exam

6 days before the final exam

5 days before the final exam:

4 days before the final exam:

3 days before the final exam

2 days before the final exam

1 day before the final exam

The night before the final exam

1 hour before the final exam

During the final exam

Leaving the final exam

Holiday begins

And that is the life of a procrastinator in engineering school/college. Is that how your semesters look? Comment!

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Productivity Level = 0

Ever have that kind of day where you didn't really do anything productive or even fun? Lets make Engineer Memes out of it...!

But yeah, I often do. I remember for a whole semester in my undergrad (2nd year), all I did was sleep, eat, play videogames and sometimes hang out with friends. It was the biggest waste of time ever! That semester was so bad and it effected my GPA a lot. If I could go back to that semester I would actually have tried. I think the problem was there were so many courses I didn't like that semester (microcomputers and OOP: c++). That semester was bad. Sleep at 4am, wake up in the afternoon and miss all my classes. Third and fourth year were a lot better though (thank goodness I stopped gaming). I actually had a WAYY better social life and still got a lot of school work done. :)

Have you had any days where you were just not doing any work, or weeks, or even months! Feel free to comment and leave your experiences! Also, remember to check out our facebook engineer memes page at https://www.facebook.com/TrustMeEngineeringMemes

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How I feel about 8 am Engineering classes

Must stay awake: This is what I look like during an 8 am class.

So I had several 8 am classes when I was an undergrad studying engineering. I hated 8 am classes. I even lived on campus and I still had trouble going to class. What made it worse was that it was a engineering stats course. I don't think I ever learned anything in that class because it was so early.

Granted my sleeping pattern was messed up. Maybe I should have went to bed earlier? How do I go to bed earlier though if I have lots of projects and assignments due? Or have many quizzes and midterms to study for?

I had a funny situation occur to me in 3rd year though. So I signed up for a course (electrical mechanical energy conversion and transmission)and it was suppose to be at a later time like around 2 pm or something. Unfortunately, the professor changed the time because he didn't like it. He changed it to 8 am. I ended up dropping the course and taking it a year later. But guess what happened? It ended up being at 8 am again. Fail.

In the end though, maybe the 8 am classes are good for us? It really prepares us for the 'real world' when we need to start our work at 8 or 9 am! Plus with all the projects we will be working on there's a possibility we won't be getting much sleep anyways!

Anyways, have you had any 8 am classes? Do you like 8 am classes or if you're an Engineer currently working do you enjoy your work hours? I heard in some companies they let you come in anytime you want, but you still have to work your full amount of hours? Feel free to comment!

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eHarmony - Why we should date an Engineer

So I am just surfing facebook and looking at stuff and I see this hilarious post one of my friends had on their page by eHarmony. What is eHarmony some of you may be asking? Well eHarmony is an online dating website designed for people who are single to meet and eventually create a long-term relationship. The site also provides advice on dating and uses specific algorithms to find you a compatible partner or some one with similar personalities .

Anyways, back to the main story. I saw this article my friend shared written by eHarmony! eHarmony is giving advice to people on why they should date an Engineer! Win!

Me and You = Love

Article by eHarmony on why we should date an Engineer

If you do not want to check out the article, it pretty much gives 15 reasons why we should date an Engineer. Leave a comment on what you think of these reasons!

Considering dating an engineer? Here are 15 reasons why you should:

1. Your parents will approve.

2. You’ll always have a pencil when you need it. Just look behind his/her ear.

3. Can’t do the math? Your date would love to solve those problems for you.

4. If you buy a home together, it will be structurally sound.

5. Conflict resolution will be approached in a calm, logical manner.

6. No pretentious dining options. Just keep the fridge stocked with beer.

7. The clocks on your stove and DVD player will be set and synched.

8. Engineers are always up for a challenge.

9. Stress and strain in a relationship is manageable. Engineers don’t run away from a problem.

10. No lazy approaches to dating here. Engineers are prepared to “do it right the first time.”

11. You can joke about friction and gravitational attraction.

12. Have computer problems? Your date can kill “bugs” for you.

13. All those broken gadgets in your home will get fixed — and possibly improved.

14. Need to talk late at night? Engineers can handle all-nighters.

15. Engineers are used to wearing rings. Just sayin’.

Also, feel free to post what other reasons why one should consider dating an engineer!

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Hug An Engineer & Engineering Student Day

Yes! It's that time of the year again. Exams are coming, lots of assignments due, midterms and tests approaching, and lots of all-nighters to finish up projects!

Engineering can be very stressful when we do not organize our time effectively. We have assignments due practically every week, sometimes midterms every week, and on top of that we have labs and lab reports that can take forever to finish and they end up not being worth as much as our midterms and tests we are given! As well, engineers who are already working their jobs can take control of our lives when they have to work 50+ hours a week on salary. The amount of time they get to see their friends and family is minimal and the amount of sleep they get is little!

So here's a day for all you engineers and engineering students. Hug an engineer day. Hopefully we can get this day to become a big thing and we can all receive hugs when we're feeling down and stressed out from our friends and family.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how busy are you? 10 being the busiest and 1 being not busy at all!

Hug An Engineer & Engineering Student Day Event

Hug An Engineer & Engineering Student Day by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Share this event with your friends, engineers, engineering students, family, and colleagues! The date this is happening is November 28, 2012!

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Sexist Engineering Memes

So there was an article online about sexist engineering memes. I thought the article was great and it discussed a lot of problems with some of the photos posted on a specific meme page (not mine). One of the very bad photos, which I would never use is where a girl is trying to do a math problem. She is not able to complete the question so instead there's a sentence under the photo that says, "Eff this shit, i'll become a stripper instead."

These are the types of memes that I find distasteful and degrading to women. I do not agree with these types of photos and I believe that women in engineering are just as capable as men who are in engineering. Just because someone is a woman engineer doesn't mean she will under perform compared to her male counter parts.

I guess problems like these are what causes women from not joining engineering. But how do you know what is considered 'going to far' when creating these memes?

Here is the online article written about different types of memes that have been found to be offensive to women:

Article about sexist engineer memes

What do you think of these memes? How do you feel sexist engineering memes affect women in engineering and women who want to go into engineering?

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What Stops Most Women From Joining Engineering?

Who would have ever known that going into engineering would not have many girls. When I first got into university I saw mostly guys in the field. When I transferred schools and got into electrical & computer engineering the ratio between male:females was approximately 40:1.

Engineering Female Error 404 by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

However, in the faculty of arts they had 60% girls and the ratio of girls/guys in science was pretty even. I'm still glad I went into engineering though. I met a lot of great friends there and who said we can't search elsewhere for girls?

I think one of the main reasons why girls get discouraged from engineering is the way they are brought up. When you look at engineering you think of cars, machines and stuff like that. Boys when they're young are given stuff they can play with where they can build and design (like lego). Girls are often given barbie dolls and baby dolls where they can take care of. This reason may not be true for everyone, but I believe this is one of the causes on why girls do not choose to go into engineering.

Another reason they may not be going into engineering is because of the stories they hear. Stories like "there are like no girls in engineering" or "how guys in engineering can be sexist". I think it's true that guys can be sexist in engineering. We need to learn how to treat the women in engineering better and be more welcoming to new women joining engineering. When us guys start treating them better, i'm sure they will have better stories to tell all their female friends that would make engineering more appealing.

What do you think stops them from going into this field of study?

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Love(t)

As engineers some of us may or may not have the chance to meet our significant others in school. We always have too much work to do to have the time to have a chance of meeting someone. As well, there aren't many women in engineering that we can meet. The odds of meeting one is low.

Underdamped Love by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://engineermemes.blogspot.ca/2012/10/lovet.html#.UMU2bYNi7JI.

I'm sure we all have sometime to meet the girl of our dreams in school. I wonder what married life would be like. Do you think this underdamped system is too simplified to describe a relationship? I can see that some parts of a relationship are great, but I can also see parts where they aren't so great like your first argument ha. Do you think you can describe 'love' with an equation? Or do you think it's too complicated to be described by mathematics?

So what do you think love is? Have you ever been in love? Did you have the time to start a relationship when you were in university? I think everyone who organizes their time efficiently can have the time to do so!

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What field of Engineering did/do you study?

Looking at the Engineer Memes fan page it looks like we have all sorts of Engineers from all around the world! It's pretty cool how we all can relate to the same pictures and videos.

It's shocking to see how many types of fields there are in engineering. You can have a mechanical engineer, a civil engineer, an electrical engineer and environmental engineer (just to name a few). I even just received a message the other day where someone asked me if I knew what a packaging engineer was. I told them I didn't and then she told me she was studying it in the Philippines! I was shocked at first and then ended up googling it and found a page that described what it was. I thought it was pretty cool. It's great to see diversity on our facebook page though. It looks like the two popular engineering fields are electrical/electronics and mechanical engineering.

Female:Male Ratio in Engineering by Engineer Memes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

I made this picture for my fanpage and I thought it was hilarious. It might not be true at your school, but it is definitely true at the school I went too, University of British Columbia. I think in my graduating class (electrical & computer engineering) we had like approximately 20 girls out of 200. I was jealous of chemical and biological engineering though! They had such a better ratio compared to the other departments. However, I wouldn't want to go into chemical and biological engineering because I have no interest in chemistry and biology. I also met a lot of great friends in my department so I am happy with my choice!

So what kind of Engineer are you? Does the photo above reflect your engineering school or all the girls in civil/mechnical engineering at your school? Feel free to comment and discuss!

Or you can just leave a comment of what kind of engineer you are, where you studied, and where you are from, also how many girls were in your class!

Example

Electrical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Canada, 20/200

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Engineer Memes

Hello!

With the success of Engineer Memes and obtaining over 60,000 fans in under a month I have decided to create a blog to share my life experience and other engineering students/engineers to relate to the photos posted on our fanpage!

What is Engineer Memes? It is a page that will show funny stories that can describe the lives of engineers and engineering students. They are things that we can relate too. They are the experiences we have been through or still going through.

Thank you for your support and thank you for joining Engineer Memes

You can find our fan page here https://www.facebook.com/TrustMeEngineeringMemes

Now here's a little information about myself. I am an electrical engineer in training. I graduated from the University of British Columbia in electrical & computer engineering specialized in nanotechnology and microsystems. My interests currently are in renewable energy sources and control system design. I just want to thank you people again for checking out my blog and facebook page. I hope you guys can find this site useful and something you can relate too.

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