“…electrical is slightly more impressive than mechanical or civil.” Oh, sharper than a serpent’s tooth! To say a Civil Engineer is less respectable than an EE is to understand nothing about CEs, and that’s not surprising since they are sworn to secrecy as a means of maintaining their control over world governments. However, as a failed CE candidate, I can relate some of their story without fear of any retribution other than perhaps the garrote on a dark street corner.
Even as a small child, I knew the intellectual and moral superiority of CEs and I set my aim on that lofty pinnacle. Alas, I was not as worthy as I desired and was rejected by my first choice of schools – Perth Amboy A&M – and was glad I had selected as a “safety school” Harvard, the Tulane of the North. I applied myself diligently to the coursework and thought my wondrous future assured until it gave time for the qualifying exam all CEs must pass before entering their junior year. I failed, miserably and dramatically. Fortunately I had acquired great memorization abilities from years of doing “plug and chug” problems and can, to this very day – perhaps 60 years after, still give a verbatim record of that exam, to wit:
1. Using no more than 3 monosyllabic words, explain the rules of rugby.
2. Construct a thermodynamic process diagram for an isothermal potato gun.
3. Construct an 8X5 matrix suitable for transforming a six lane highway into a one lane parking lot (Hint: Consider making one of the diagonal elements an orange barrel).
4. Discuss 3 significant differences between a gas grill and a D9.
5. Using classic reduction ad absurdum, explain why pushing a rope reduces to the trivial case.
6. Using any non-Euclidian geometry, construct a graphic proof that a Dodge truck is superior to a Ford truck for checking out seat covers.
7. Construct a 5-cycle log-semi log graph showing optimal astrological signs for slump tests.
8. Disassemble a theodolite and show why it is metaphysically impossible to turn an angle.
9. Using a topographic map, develop a drainage plan that has a 68% likelihood of involving water.
Ashamed and beaten, I turned to the balm of mathematics. I began small, doing ODEs before the sun was over the yardarm, but that only led to more and more, until soon I was smuggling Lie Groups across the Nebraska border, secreted in the gas tank of a John Deere H. Only timely intervention by a group of CEs from Drexel who had inadvertently wandered west while closing a plot around Phil’s Cheesesteak stand saved me.
After years of therapy I was able to accept myself as only a chainman, consigned to wear the denigrating white hardhat rather than the coveted orange, unable to attract a breeding female (who did know the size of a Pickett log-log mattered), scarcely able to kill a six-pack of Corona on the way to work. But, at least I was on the periphery of the noble profession – Civil Engineering – rather than being forced to work with EEs.
And so, hear my sad tale and learn. Learn not to think of EEs as impressive – think of them as they really are. Think of them wearing white socks that don’t match, think of them driving ’84 Yugos to impress girls, think of them as people who can never remember which plane they left their pole in.
