Why Are Engineers Viewed as Less Intelligent Than Physics & Math Majors?

[Archi]

Engineering is for the "special"

I'm curious why the engineer is so looked down upon in this forum. I, like many of you, have taken several classes with engineering majors. Is it that you find them to be stupid or more exactly, not as intelligent as physics/math majors? I'm a physics major, but I certainly don't think that when I declared my major that my I.Q. increased dramatically. I can't say the same for people I go to school with however, as I see a few of the students that I was in calculus 1, 2, and 3 with that are now pure math majors, and they essentially walk around laughing at all the other majors for being simple. I attend the University of New Mexico, not MIT, Harvard, Yale, etc, so apparently being better than everyone else is independent of educational institution at least to a pure math major. With respect to these pure math majors, I was there when they got 60% grades on their tests in calculus 1,2, AND 3. I was also there when they told others that they got a 90%. I was there when they told everyone how easy the homework in physics was, and I was there when they offered me the teacher solution guide their friend gave them. In short, as someone majoring in physics & pure math I find it a bit sickening that many of the people with the same major as myself, view themselves as better than everyone else. Not because of academic achievement, or high intelligence, but simply because they declared their major to be pure math or physics. Many of them google their mastering physics problems, then brag about how clever they were in solving them. So my question is, why are engineers viewed as simple or less intelligent then physics & pure math majors? I have yet to encounter a physics major I thought was incredibly intelligent, yet they seem to have egos that cannot be bounded. Three of the guys in my study group for complex variables are engineering majors(2 EE, 1 ME), and they often come up with solutions and creative approaches before myself and the pure math only major in my group. Should I still consider them stupid, cause in the end they are engineering majors after all, which in this forum seems to equate to future drones. Not to mention how several people in my discrete structures class, just like to tell people, "Well you know, I'm in the discrete structures class" as if saying "I'm a genius", which is kind of funny since at least for me I find CV much more challenging then discrete. In short, how many of you think that your better than engineers (and as an aside probably everyone else) because your a pure math major or a physics major, and why?

 

[ZenOne]

As an engineering major I can agree with everything that you've said--there seems to be this horrible attitude towards engineers and I'm not quite sure why--I'd like an answer as well.

I'm just spit-balling here but I think it has to do with the plug-n-chug attitude of most engineering students--I do not share this trait :D

 

[Number Nine]

That's a remarkably hostile and paragraphless post. I'm sure it's true that many math and physics majors consider their art to be, in some sense, superior to engineering, just as pure math majors view themselves as morally and intellectually superior to applied math students, but your post comes across as profoundly bitter and resentful. Has anyone here ridiculed you for your choice of major?

 

[Mmm_Pasta]

I haven't seen any engineers looked down upon on this forum...

 

[wukunlin]

this isn't about the forum, this type of rubbish exists everywhere. In where I live it is the opposite, everytime I tell someone I primarily do physics I get ask "why don't you do engineering I'm sure you're smart enough." gives me spikes of blood pressure all the time.

a lot of a people are ignorant, its just that. although at times these are just stereotype jokes taken a little too far.

 

[micromass]

Uuuh, please post the examples you're talking about. I didn't see much hostility towards engineers on this forum.

Maybe the posters were joking, and you tool their comments serious??

 

[Edin_Dzeko]

In medicine people don't think optometrist, podiatrist, dentists, pharmacists are doctors. Some call them med school rejects. Nothing new here. Happens everywhere. There are many people whose jobs make our lives better but they get the least amount of respect.'consider waiters, sanitation workers, when do they give awards to janitors for keeping a school clean? What about cab drivers who get people around? That's human nature I guess

 

[Archi]

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=540702
"(No offense to engineers but, statiscally or generally, pure math requires rigorus understanding of concept hence they need to be smarter)"

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=538044&page=2
"Why is it that physics and math courses are 1000 times more rigorous than the ME courses? In physics or math they're not scared to give you a problem where you have to think a little bit (OMG! think?). I took Stat.Mech/Thermo from Physics in the same quarter as Turdmodynamics from ME; when I walked from my physics class to the engineering class it felt like I was walking from college to kindergarten. One problem from the Physics homework was harder (and more enjoyable) than the whole "thermo" course from ME. And they were all different problems that required different types of thinking: in ME all problems are exact copies of the examples in the book (how dumb is that?).

How are you supposed to "solve real problems" if the only things they teach kids to do is memorize how to plug numbers into a few equations? Give anyone in ME an original, abstract problem to solve and they won't be able to do it."

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=536426&page=2
"I think you guys misunderstood; I am agreeing with you. No one would hire a physicist to derive the chassis of a car (or whatever silly analogy one of you just made). I agree with this, and I'm saying this is a bad thing if you're a physicist trying to be an engineer. It's great that physicists are great problem solvers and if you have a Ph.D it's pretty obvious that an employer can throw some books at you and tell you to solve some problem, and you'll be able to do it. Most of the time, jobs don't consist of this. There is just too much that needs to be done in a very specific way (especially in engineering) because of standards in regards to efficiency or safety or whatever.

Anyway, learning methods makes you more drone-like. I'm not backing down on this terminology, because that is the very simple truth. Getting into semantics about word usage is best left to left-wing liberal nuts and I don't really care about it. My point was that engineering work is less fundamental than theoretical physics, and to be able to have the skills of an engineer you can't possibly do both in the same amount of time... so as an engineer, you end up learning a lot of methods that have been conceived already. There's nothing wrong with this, because most of the time this kind of happens in theoretical physics research as well. Still, recognizing the degree with which this happens in engineering will be helpful to any physicist who wonders why engineering firms don't want to hire him over a newly-minted B.S. engineer."

 

[DaveC426913]

OK, that's 3.

Of 250,000 PF members.

 

[Archi]

OK, that's 3.

Of 250,000 PF members.

Seriously? Keep going, 3 in a ten minute search. How many threads on the forum? How many replies in the threads? Would you like me to go through all line by line and copy them all and paste them here so you can read them and give me some other excuse or simply reply with "uh so"? No thanks, their are several on the forum. If you want to play blind man, go for it.

 

[DaveC426913]

If you want to play blind man, go for it.

Well, I'm pleased to have at least provided a target for all that undirected vitriolic accusation in your opening post.

 

[micromass]

Your example shows only that there are some people on this forum who are biased against engineers (which I will certainly not deny). It doesn't mean that this entire forum hates engineers. In fact, we have many engineers here.

If you did your research properly, you will see (for example) that I replied to your first thread and called the OP out on saying that engineers were not smart. So you can't claim that we are biased against engineers here...

There is a difference between engineering and physics/math. Physics/math is more fundamental. Engineering is more applicable and useful. That's just the plain truth. That doesn't mean that either major is worse or better than another! It are just observations.

 

[micromass]

Seriously? Keep going, 3 in a ten minute search. How many threads on the forum? How many replies in the threads? Would you like me to go through all line by line and copy them all and paste them here so you can read them and give me some other excuse or simply reply with "uh so"? No thanks, their are several on the forum. If you want to play blind man, go for it.

If you're honest: count the number of anti-engineering posts, and count the number of pro-engineering posts. I'm sure it'll balance out.

 

[DrummingAtom]

Just glancing through those posts, it's pretty obvious that the ones coming to the conclusion that engineering is for the "special," sound like they need some growing up to do. You would never find a mentor or a professional on this forum throwing around such non sense.

Also, in each of those examples you gave, many people are very quick to counter the claims about engineering. The reason I like Physics Forums so much is because so many members respect each other's discipline. If you really want to read some biased degrading garbage, read the youtube physics/math videos comments.

 

[hadsed]

I made one of those posts that you cited, so maybe I should elaborate some more.

Someone said it earlier in this thread, something along the lines of the attitudes of most engineering students. They don't really care about the underlying causes or reasons for the things they study. Now, I will be honest in saying that I don't particularly enjoy doing lengthy pure math proofs, and so in some sense I can be like that as well. Still, I find it troubling when such intelligent people can get to be so shallow sometimes. There are a lot of engineering students that are doing it because they're able to solve differential equations, do physics reasonably well, etc. and then get well paying jobs. It's akin to going to medical school, and many on here don't get their blood boiling when people trash-talk them for not being 'intellectual' enough.

Anyway, that is my main problem with most people (not just engineers). The intellectual-ness is gone from the subject. I find that very, very bad, and I find it especially troublesome when the smarter of the bunch can do this as well. Now of course this can be applied to physicists as well, in many, many cases, which is why in my post I mentioned that this can happen in physics research as well. Many times researchers get into a very comfortable position of writing grants and doing research on what they've been doing since their dissertation. It takes away some of that intellectual-ness that I'm very fond of. In this context, physicists can be just as "drone-like" as engineers. I find engineering to be drone-like because most jobs get to be drone-like. This is the most efficient way to do things in an industrial society, but unfortunately it's not the best way to keep minds active.

Anyway, I know I went off on some tangents but I felt like I should give some of the context of my ideas as well, maybe making it easier to understand why I have this particular perspective.

 

[Edin_Dzeko]

I'm curious why the engineer is so looked down upon in this forum. I, like many of you, have taken several classes with engineering majors. Is it that you find them to be stupid or more exactly, not as intelligent as physics/math majors? I'm a physics major, but I certainly don't think that when I declared my major that my I.Q. increased dramatically.

No one is better than anyone when it comes to human beings. It's like saying I'm more human than you are. What a joke. I had a math teacher in high school who used to say math teachers are the smartest and her reason was, "give a math teacher Shakespeare, she can read it. Give an English teacher calculus and it's a different story." It's really sad that people don't respect other people for their occupations. But like I gave in my other post, this argument of yours can be stretched beyond engineers vs. math/physics.
Consider why everyone respects science majors and think they are brave but the person who is an arts, music, philosophy major is looked down upon? Why is someone looked on with respect because of the name of the school they go to and why is another looked on like a failure because "community college" is at the end of their school name? It's unfortunate that we live in a world today where people are supposedly "higher" / "better" than other people. No one is more human than another.

In closing, stuff like that happens throughout all aspects of life not just with careers. Suck it up.

 

[Edin_Dzeko]

I find it a bit sickening that many of the people with the same major as myself, view themselves as better than everyone else. Not because of academic achievement, or high intelligence, but simply because they declared their major to be pure math or physics.

That's nothing to brag about either, IMO. It's really silly

 

[Bourbaki1123]

That's a remarkably hostile and paragraphless post. I'm sure it's true that many math and physics majors consider their art to be, in some sense, superior to engineering, just as pure math majors view themselves as morally and intellectually superior to applied math students, but your post comes across as profoundly bitter and resentful. Has anyone here ridiculed you for your choice of major?

The converse of these also hold. Engineers can often think that theoretical physics isn't as important as creating an artificial heart, physicists can think that pure mathematics is often fruitless and divorced from the real problems (and they're right in some circumstances; there is no denying that there is some sandbox playing going on)... oh, and Von Neumann thought along these lines as well:

"I think that it is a relatively good approximation to truth - which is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations-that mathematical ideas originate in empirics, although the genealogy is sometimes long and obscure. But, once they are so conceived, the subject begins to live a peculiar life of its own and is better compared to a creative one, governed by almost entirely aesthetical motivations, than to anything else and, in particular, to an empirical science. There is, however, a further point which, I believe, needs stressing. As a mathematical discipline travels far from its empirical source, or still more, if it is a second and third generation only indirectly inspired by ideas coming from "reality" it is beset with very grave dangers. It becomes more and more purely aestheticizing, more and more purely I'art pour I'art. This need not be bad, if the field is surrounded by correlated subjects, which still have closer empirical connections, or if the discipline is under the influence of men with an exceptionally well-developed taste. But there is a grave danger that the subject will develop along the line of least resistance, that the stream, so far from its source, will separate into a multitude of insignificant branches, and that the discipline will become a disorganized mass of details and complexities. In other words, at a great distance from its empirical source, or after much "abstract" inbreeding, a mathematical subject is in danger of degeneration. At the inception the style is usually classical; when it shows signs of becoming baroque, then the danger signal is up. It would be easy to give examples, to trace specific evolutions into the baroque and the very high baroque, but this, again, would be too technical. " - Von Neumann "The Mathematician" - Part 2


Also, my further gripe is that logicians are always forgotten in these things...

 

[symbolipoint]

These things, conflict between engineering and physics, have been discussed on physicsforums before, maybe not in one dedicated 'thread'. This conflict is expressed in schools and in other places.

Opinion: The conflict happens in due to two situations. (1) Students in high school, college, and university have not grown enough yet. (2) Department representatives or officials would like to promote one main field, mostly their own. Really, the clever, more intelligent person will sense that something outside his own field could help him in his field.

Also stated before on the forums is that the goal of Physics is Understanding; the goal of Engineering is Design using already existing technology and principles. They are both good.

 

[Mépris]

As a follow up to what Wukunlin said, the situation is fairly similar over here too. Most enrolled in the Physics course are people who didn't have the grades to get into Engineering. Similarly, among students, the "harder to get into courses" (w.r.t high school grades achieved) are given more respect. Biomedical Science and Civil Engineering being the two most competitive courses over the past few years.

 

[wukunlin]

Also, I found quite a few staff in the physics department in my university consistently shows bitterness over the fact engineers make far more money then they do.

I will leave the effects on us students to your imaginations...

 

[Dembadon]

I'm curious why the engineer is so looked down upon in this forum...

Is your return/enter key broken? Looking at your post makes my eyes water. You should put a little more effort into your post next time. Most people don't want to wade through something like that, and if you want to make a point, it behooves you to make it easy for others to ascertain it.

That said, I'm not convinced that this forum looks down on engineers by the information you've provided. You've shown three instances in which members of the forum offered their opinions. Apart from the fact that a few of the mentors on this forum are engineers, I think it's silly for you to ask someone to research an issue that you brought up. You're the one making the claim, so the onus is on you. And if you want to make a convincing argument, it'll probably take more than three examples.

 

[Rockoz]

Is your return/enter key broken? Looking at your post makes my eyes water. You should put a little more effort into your post next time. Most people don't want to wade through something like that, and if you want to make a point, it behooves you to make it easy for others to ascertain it.

That said, I'm not convinced that this forum looks down on engineers by the information you've provided. You've shown three instances in which members of the forum offered their opinions. Apart from the fact that a few of the mentors on this forum are engineers, I think it's silly for you to ask someone to research an issue that you brought up. You're the one making the claim, so the onus is on you. And if you want to make a convincing argument, it'll probably take more than three examples.

Perhaps a proof by induction is in order.

 

[chiro]

I've heard some math majors put down physics in my uni.

I think we all are the same in many ways. Applied mathematicians and scientists do more or less the same type of thing. We all use mathematics in some way, and I find that the engineers/physicists/applied math people are the ones that can really put something into context.

Having said this I have found the pure stuff to be on a different level to the other stuff, but it is a different way of thinking.

I think that if these pure guys want to rubbish the rest of us, then they should step into an engineers shoes for a day and see if they can handle it like they think they can. Chances are they won't account for the experience that the engineer had to build up over a long time, just like the pure guy had to stare at and prove theorems over an equally long time.

But superiority complexes will never disappear: some guys dick will always be bigger than someone elses.

 

[en bloc]

i can't remember a famous quote from a famous scientist, but it goes like, engineers are dilettantes compared to scientists.

 

[phyzguy]

A couple of comments:

(1) I've known plenty of engineers that look down on pure scientists because they don't know how to accomplish anything in the "real world" So what? There are always people who denigrate others in order to build themselves up. Just ignore them.

(2) If you are an engineer and this bothers you, you can always take the attitude of "laughing all the way to the bank". Most engineers make a lot more money than pure scientists.

 

[mal4mac]

Consider why everyone respects science majors and think they are brave but the person who is an arts, music, philosophy major is looked down upon? Why is someone looked on with respect because of the name of the school they go to and why is another looked on like a failure because "community college" is at the end of their school name? It's unfortunate that we live in a world today where people are supposedly "higher" / "better" than other people. No one is more human than another.

Everyone? Everyone in your science class maybe, and maybe your parents, who may think you will earn more money being an engineer. But you can find literary types and philosophers who are very critical of scientists and engineers. One very recent example - A.N. Wilson was just on the radio mocking the amount of praise that Steve Jobs was given in his obituaries, suggesting that his achievements were nothing compared to those of great poets.

I'm all for treating people with equal respect, but aren't some subjects just "higher" than others? Isn't what Newton did "higher" than what any engineer has done? Then again, many engineers have done much higher things than the average physicist.

The self-assumed superiority of scoffing physicists is usually based on nothing more than the fact that they are pursuing the same subject as Newton, Einstein, and similar giants. They stand on their shoulders, but do nothing to build the human pyramid - they are just dead weights.

 

[clope023]

Uuuh, please post the examples you're talking about. I didn't see much hostility towards engineers on this forum.

Maybe the posters were joking, and you tool their comments serious??

I haven't seen much of it in this forum, though it does exist.

For instance some posters have said experimental physics and engineering is for those who couldn't hack it as theoretical physicists and mathematicians. Also even within the physics community people put high energy particle physics say on a pedestal and say condensed matter physics is for those who couldn't hack high energy particles because of the math. (Which is ridiculous but I've seen it)

I've seen the same attitude in real life, a couple of buddies of mine say they came to college hoping to do research with great scientists and they were disappointed cause with just their majors in math (they doubled in math and physics) they're smarter than professional phD physicists and engineers who just happen to be experimentalists. They make exceptions for theoreticians and mathematicians of course, you can see the bias going on here.

I've seen similar attitude from the math majors to physicists across the board as well, like chiro suggested.

 

[romsofia]

How DARE you call yourself a physics/pure math major?! If you're just going to suck up to ENGINEERS then physics and pure math ain't for you kiddo!

All joking aside, people with big egos, well, have big egos. However, People are just kidding MOST of the time, but they're are always exceptions to the rule (cliche I know).

 

[turbo]

This whole thread is ridiculous and deserves to die. I don't know of anybody on this forum that is dumping on engineers or on applied sciences or math in general. IMHO, someone who can absorb enough math and sciences, and learn to apply that knowledge to solve problems, improve processes, etc, is likely a positive influence on society. I can't say the same for the people who devoted their careers to solving Fermat's last theorem. Not dissing mathematicians here, just comparing the ultimate results of their work to those who are applying their knowledge to current problems.