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

[sandy.bridge]

One thing complements the others. Mathematicians, without physical or outside motivation come up with new mathematics and discover and expand upon relationships within. Physicists, without thinking about what a physical theory could be used for, try to come up with these physical theories and model the universe using the math that the mathematicians developed. Then the engineer builds (no pun) on both of these and uses them to design and build things directly applicable to our lives and society. So in terms of "purity" the engineers are at the end, but that doesn't make them inferior. In fact what would our society be like if we only had mathematics and the theory but no one to use them to improve it?

However, the importance of engineers established, the average physicist or mathematician is usually smarter than the average engineer (even most engineers would admit that). That's not to say engineers are dumb. It's just that physics and mathematics has a lot of bright people (how many child prodigies chose engineering?) As an example, just look at the amount of schooling each has to go through in order to get their respective titles.

There are bright people regardless of where you go. Don't be so ignorant. I know plenty of people in either field that are exceptionally smart...

 

[ahsanxr]

I should have added "I feel like..." to the start of that statement. I think it is true, but I don't have any proof of it. It's just the impression that I get, having interacted with students in both departments, along with other reasons. I repeat, you need to be very bright and hard-working in order to get through things like 4 engineering courses per semester, so in general engineers are much smarter than the average person. (I feel) It's just that the exceptionally gifted people tend to go choose math or physics, and even an average person working in one of these fields would be considered a genius by normal standards.

 

[thegreenlaser]

I think one issue is that a lot of the "application" questions that show up in theoretical classes tend to be very contrived and obvious. When you spend half an hour proving a nasty theorem and doing a difficult derivation of a formula and then the prof says "Okay we're going to do an application question now," which consists of simply plugging numbers into the formula, of course the 'pure' people are going to think that the 'applied' people aren't very smart. A lot of the "applied people are stupid" attitude at my school seems to stem from the fact that the 'pure' kids rarely see anything more difficult than blatantly obvious plug-and-chug questions.

Of course I'm not saying that all people in theoretical subjects think that people in applied fields are stupid, but I think that what I said above is at least a contributing factor for most of the ones that do.

 

[RandomGuy88]

I wonder if part of the problem with this entire discussion is what level are engineer/physicist/mathematician we are comparing.

My undergrad was in mechanical engineering and I am currently getting my PhD in aerospace engineering. During my 4 years of undergrad I came to realize there were A LOT of idiots in my classes. I can't speak for physics or mathematics because I didn't know many people in those departments but the average student in my class was not very intelligent. However at grad school things are completely different. I am surrounded by a lot of very bright people in both experimental and theoretical lines of work. I have professors who would be considered geniuses no matter who they are being compared to.

So it wouldn't shock me to find out that on AVERAGE the undergrads in physics/math are smarter than engineering undergrads (keep in mind I have no experience with physics/math undergrads) but once you get to people with their PhD who are doing some serious research I don't think you can say any particular group is smarter on average.

 

[Mindscrape]

Some folks just like feeling superior; like me, I feel superior to both physicists and engineers as an insider in both physicist and engineer world (just kidding).

In optics, for example, physicists and electrical engineers work on the same stuff a lot of the time. You can just as easily find an EE doing quantum optics as a physicist, the only difference is that the EE calls it quantum optics and the physicist calls it atomic optics. Not just physicists work on physics.

People that are smug about their field of research need to get out from the cave they're living in. People interested in pure physics would fail in applied physics, people interested in only engineering would fail in physics, and physicists only interested in physics would fail in engineering. We all fail at some point.

 

[ahsanxr]

I wonder if part of the problem with this entire discussion is what level are engineer/physicist/mathematician we are comparing.

My undergrad was in mechanical engineering and I am currently getting my PhD in aerospace engineering. During my 4 years of undergrad I came to realize there were A LOT of idiots in my classes. I can't speak for physics or mathematics because I didn't know many people in those departments but the average student in my class was not very intelligent. However at grad school things are completely different. I am surrounded by a lot of very bright people in both experimental and theoretical lines of work. I have professors who would be considered geniuses no matter who they are being compared to.

So it wouldn't shock me to find out that on AVERAGE the undergrads in physics/math are smarter than engineering undergrads (keep in mind I have no experience with physics/math undergrads) but once you get to people with their PhD who are doing some serious research I don't think you can say any particular group is smarter on average.

I sincerely thank you for saying what I was thinking/trying to say haha. A lot of those "idiots" you were talking about did end up working as some sort of engineers, no? But the "idiots" in the physics/math department if any, usually don't make it til the PhD level and hence there's an extra level of sophistication required to become a physicist/mathematician. However I completely agree that at the post-grad level people in either department are equally bright.

 

[ashnek]

First of all i think comparing average people by their fields is not really getting anywhere basically because they are different, engineering has many ways to be done and I am not talking about the branches its about what job you get to have or you want to have. Some people they just want to manage or take over their fathers construction company, some don't want to design something new they just want to build stuff that's already built just adapting it to the surroundings and stuff (which isn't always easy). I am not sure how is it in math/phys i havnt been there but yes when i did my undergrad there were a lot of people not interested in the heavy stuff and they just wanted to get by (as there's in any undergrad). With this I am not saying that it is possible or easy to get by in engineering i mean this people take years to graduate I've seen and heard of guys taking 9 to 10 years for an undergrad in my country (mostly EE and ME), I am not saying all of them take that long but it isn't easy.

You have to compare the idealized concept or work for each area and i at least think they are the same. As engineer first of all making some new machine using a concept made by math/phys or researching it yourself is as hard as I am sure it is for a math guy to come up with a new structure or a theorem and for a physicist to consolidate a theory that explains some phenomena. Even if you know all the science based things that your machine will do you still have to figure a way to make it real. Making the machine secure, thinking of all the ways it could go wrong, then the ways people could use it wrong, then the ways that the place it installed in could go wrong then making it more efficient it is hard work and it requires science and experience, I am pretty sure Math and Physics people do the same they need to make their theories and models failproof give conditions for good use of a theorem etc. Same as mathematicians need to create new structures and physicist need to adapt theories or concepts engineers have to create new ways to do the same thing or a different way to do something different that can just solve your problem and as in your fields it is not something you will find in a book its something you have to use your science knowledge and your experience and creativity to do just the same.

I agree with what a guy side above, and yes in undergrad we see applications as plug and calculate but it really isn't like that when you are trying to design a new machine with a new concept or a new way to attack a problem, you just see it while you are in uni because well you need it and to see how to use something once you know you can use it which is the tricky part.

One of my points is towards what another person said that "your average engineer is not smarter than average math/phys guy", this statement is based first of all in a wrong concept of intelligence and a very faulty one because as i said above not all the engineers that come out are going to do the design new concept/machine stuff not all are interested in the science part of engineering so they might not solve your oh so great mathematical problems but it requires intelligence to run a company efficiently it takes intelligence to manage work force etc... and its not a lesser version of intelligence its just not the way of intelligence most of the science guys think of, like when they see a professor that just knows and can solve everything and he's very creative on solutions and stuff it is the same but is just not so "science"

In short words engineers, physicists and mathematicians do the same work you need to know your theory so well and be aware of the tools and knowledge you have or others recently developed to actually do outstanding work.

I agree that there's been some "looking down" to engineers but to those who think we are less i just have to remind you society wouldn't have come this far technologically and in science knowledge if it wasnt for a combination of all the "pure" sciences and engineering and trust me every profession was just as important as any of the other.

i assume you ll realize english is not my main language ><