Do you have "the knack?"  click here.

What you will learn in Engineering

You can study hard and still fail

You can not study and pass

Multiple choice does not mean easy

There are no trains here

Six exams can be written in 4 days, but it hurts

You can skip all the classes, study for 15 minutes before the final and still do better than an arts student in any arts class

Pi to six decimal places

Judging by fellow students, engineers are either drunks or geeks

Everyone is someone else's wierdo

Front Row people are wierd

Those who can, do, those who can't, teach

A 95.75% can be an A

An 80.1% can be an A+

You can kill your neighbors with a 9 volt battery

You NEED an HP

Qualities of an Engineer

PERSPECTIVE -- To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

PRACTICALITY -- A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude! The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let's have a word with him." "Hi George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greenskeeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

EXPERTISE --There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is". The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:
One chalk mark..........$1
Knowing where to put it..........$49,999
It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

INNOVATION -- A Department of Transportation maintenance crew packed up the truck early one morning and drove out to a construction site where they were to work that day. The crew started to unload the gear when one of the workers noticed that they had forgotten the shovels. Paniced, the crew cheif called back to the maintenance supervisor. "We forgot the shovels back at the shop boss. What are we gonna do?" The supervisor thought a minute and said "stay calm, just lean against each other until we get someone out there with the shovels."

PROBLEM SOLVING -- An engineer died and was instantly transported to pearly gates. Saint Peter met the engineer at the gates of Heaven. Peter looked through his records to see if the engineer was listed in "the book" of souls that should go to heaven. Peter looked once, furrowed his brow, looked again and finally said, "I'm sorry, but your name is not on the list. Usually engineers are a cinch to get in to Heaven but since your name is not on the list you'll have to go .... below." The engineer was, of course, disappointed but he took the elevator down to Hell. A couple weeks later Peter called down to Satan in Hell. "Hello, Satan?" "Yeah, its me, Peter. Whatayawant?" "It is about that engineer I sent down a couple weeks ago." Satan answered, "Oh yeah, that guy was a real find. He's great. He has gotten a heat exchanger working so that it is now a nice comfortable 68 degrees, he has piped in cool running water, he has got a ventalation system going to get rid of that sulfur smell. He made this place into a paradise." There was silence on the line for a moment and then Peter said "well, we made a mistake. He belongs up here. There was a record keeping glitch but I want you to send him up right away." "No way are we giving this guy up," said Satan, "he is the best thing that ever happened to us down here." Peter responded, "Well that is just too bad, he belongs up here and that is that." Satan, unmoved, said "no can do, Padre -- he is staying here." Peter, exasperated, said "well, if you don't send him up right away, we are going to sue." The line was quiet for a moment when Satan sneered "where are YOU going to find a lawyer?"

Engineers will find a way to validate anything.

The Engineer's Diet
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

We all know that it takes 1 calorie to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree celsius.

Translated into meaningful terms, this means that if you eat a very cold dessert (generally consisting of water in large part), the natural processes which raise the consumed dessert to body temperature during the digestive cycle literally sucks the calories out of the only available source, your body fat.

For example, a dessert served and eaten near 0 degrees C (32.2 deg.F) will in a short time be raised to the normal body temperature of 37 degrees C (98.6 deg. F). For each gram of dessert eaten, that process takes approximately 37 calories as stated above. The average dessert portion is 6 oz, or 168 grams.

Therefore, by operation of thermodynamic law, 6,216 calories (1 cal./g/deg. x 37 deg. x 168g) are extracted from body fat as the dessert's temperature is normalized.

Allowing for the 1,200 latent calories in the dessert, the net calorie loss is approximately 5,000 calories. Obviously, the more cold dessert you eat, the faster you will lose weight, if that is your goal.

This process works equally well when drinking very cold beer in frosted glasses. Each ounce of beer contains 16 latent calories, but extracts 1,036 calories (6,216 cal. per 6 oz. portion) in the temperature normalizing process. Thus the net calorie loss per ounce of beer is 1,020 calories.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to calculate that 12,240 calories (12oz. x 1,020 cal./oz.) are extracted from the body in the process of drinking a can of beer. Frozen desserts, e.g., ice cream, are even more beneficial, since it takes 83 cal./g to melt them (i.e., raise them to 0 deg. C) and an additional 37 cal./g to further raise them to body temperature.

The results here are really remarkable, and it beats running hands down. Unfortunately, for those who eat pizza as an excuse to drink beer, pizza (loaded with latent calories and served above body temperature) induces an opposite effect. But, thankfully, as the astute reader should have already reasoned, the obvious solution is to drink a lot of beer with pizza, and follow up immediately with large bowls of ice cream.

We should all be thin very soon if we adhere religiously to this cold pizza, cold beer, and ice cream diet.

Top 10 Reasons to Date an Engineer

1.  Complimentary Tutoring

2.  Large Earning Potential

3.  Can handle stress and strain in relationships

4.  Know all the dynamics of relative motion

5.  Learn about the benefits of friction and viscosity

6.  FREE body diagrams

7.  Always back up their hard drives

8.  Trained to do it right the first time

9.  Specialized in experimentation

10. Can go all night with no hint of fatigue

Young Engineer

A boy was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week." The boy took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to his pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want." Again the boy took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The boy said, "Look I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."

The real job of an intern.

You might be an Engineering Major if...

If you have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically.

If you know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long division.

If you've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.

If it is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.

If you know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.

If you think in "math."

If you have a pet named after a scientist.

If you laugh at jokes about mathematicians.

If the Humane society has you arrested because you actually performed the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.

If you can translate English into Binary.

If you can't remember what's behind the door in the science building which says "Exit."

If you are completely addicted to caffeine.

If you consider ANY non-science course "easy."

If when your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim to have accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that according to Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe.

If the "fun" center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.

If you'll assume that a "horse" is a "sphere" in order to make the math easier.

If you understood more than five of these indicators.

If you make a hard copy of this list, and post it on your door.

What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?

Mechanical Engineers build weapons.  Civil Engineers build targets..

Operating on Engineers

Five surgeons were taking a coffee break and were discussing their work.

The first said, "I think accountants are the easiest to operate on. You open them up and everything inside is numbered."

The second said, "I think librarians are the easiest to operate on. You open them up and everything inside is in alphabetical order."

The third said, "I like to operate on electricians. You open them up and everything inside is color-coded."

The fourth one said, "I like to operate on lawyers. They're heartless spineless, gutless, and their heads and their ass are interchangeable."

The fifth surgeon says "I like engineers . They always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end."

Engineers on a Train Trip

Three lawyers and three engineers are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three lawyers each buy tickets and watch as the three engineers buy only a single ticket.

How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asked one of the three lawyers.

"Watch and you'll see," answers one of the engineers.

They all board the train. The lawyers take their respective seats but all three engineers cram into a restroom and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, "Ticket, please."

The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The lawyers saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the lawyers decide to copy the engineers on the return trip and save some money. When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don't buy a ticket at all.

How are you going to travel without a ticket," asks one perplexed lawyer.

"Watch and you'll see," says one of the engineers.

When they board the train the three lawyers cram into a restroom and the three engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs.

Shortly afterward, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the lawyers are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, "Ticket, please."

For more engineering humor, check out the Dilbert comic strip

This page was last modified on September 12, 2002, by Christina Harrisz.