I'm Not an Engineer...Am I?

I am an engineer. I am an engineer. Wait, what? Engineers sit behind secluded desks and avoid contact with the rest of the world. I run from one maze-like building to another—always learning and greeting, questioning and interacting—I’m not an engineer.

Or maybe, I just don’t know what an engineer really is. I thought, after all, that all my professors would be mumbling men with no social skills, and instead, I find them engaging and amiable. They can make good jokes—and not just ones about science.

So two weeks into the world of engineering, and I really do not know what to think. Most of my expectations—such as the ones where I envision an isolated person behind a desk—have been shredded apart by reality. Engineers are the same as everyone else, I have concluded; they just think in a different way. Exactly what this “different” method of thinking is, I do not fully understand yet, but I know that engineers must be methodical and thorough. Sources need to reliable and well-cited; unlike high school, I cannot just cut and paste a link to a random website and call it my bibliography.

I will probably have a different view in another week, and be at a different point in the engineer “transformation” process. Being an engineer is an ever-evolving route, especially for a freshman in college.