Here’s every frustrating thing you’ll only know if you study Engineering

As much as the lawyers and medics hate to admit it, engineers are the unsung heroes of uni. We put in nine-to-five shifts every day at uni as well as taking on exams, coursework, group work, research, and presentations all in one course. Don’t @ us about the struggles of your five contact hours a week.

We may be some of the most employable students on campus, but that doesn’t come without a price. Here’s every annoying thing about studying an Engineering degree:

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No one appreciates or understands what we do

There’s a continual assumption that all engineers are plumbers and car mechanics, but I beg you to ask a chemical engineer to fix a pipe in your kitchen and see what happens. There’s an endless number of fields we can study for – from medicine to construction, to renewable energies and aeroplanes. You can’t simply write us off as people who wear dirty overalls but also got three A*s at A-level. This is no way to treat the people building the country’s infrastructure. 

And there’s an assumption that it’s a boys club

To be fair, it’s no wonder this stigma exists. You’re typically looking at around 10-25 per cent of engineering students being female. After a while, you get used to the “Oh wow that must be hard!” or “I didn’t expect that from you.” The fact is, female engineers are some of the best in the game. We’ve got huge Women In Engineering communities across the country, and we’re not just “good for girls”, we’re pioneers.

There is quite literally no standard reading list

One day we’ve made a breakthrough in our research and the next day it’s been shattered before our eyes. We’re not just looking at the past for our references, as new innovations in engineering are happening every day. This means we have to stay constantly up-to-date with new discoveries online. Second-hand text books? A far off dream. Imagine the printing credits. 

Which means you’ll never catch us doing a module outside of Engineering

You’ll meet the odd Business student who tries his hand at a sociology module to up his woke tokens, or an English student who tried a psychology module and bricked it after the first lecture when they realised that there’s science involved. Expanding your study outside of your course is part of the beauty of uni, but it’s something we’ll never know. The best we can hope for is a business- or finance-focused course. No way will you catch us doing American Literature with Social Criticism – we don’t have the hours spare.

If you’re an Engineering student with a good work ethic and the ability to handle data, then you could work at the forefront of tech innovation with J.P. Morgan

Apply to one of J.P. Morgan’s grad roles or internships here

Haters will say its Photoshop, but we do have a social life

We may not be known as the most social on campus, but that doesn’t mean we hate fun. We’re not trolls that live indoors designing engines every night – we do in fact have regular socials, teamed with hard hats and high vis vests so you can spot us a mile away.

But group projects will suck the life out of us for no return

Our group projects aren’t just prepping some slides from some pages in a textbook. We’re talking designing a project, making it, testing it, reporting on it and then presenting it, only to find out it’s made up a fraction of our overall grade for that module. The amount of time spent on Solidworks is unholy. 

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We can’t survive without maths

Whether it’s Civil, Environmental, or Mechanical engineering, you can pretty much guarantee that from day dot you need to be fluent in maths, or you’re essentially doomed. There’s no blagging our way through an essay or research piece, it’s hard facts and even harder stats. So while others breeze through an essay argument they conjured up in ten minutes, we’re knee deep in digits. 

But to be fair, we’re getting an education worth our money

Our first year is about our only taste of freedom from heavy research and essentially working hours before we’ve graduated. But, on the upside, we pay nine grand a year for a course that actually has us in uni every day. We have no choice but to eat, sleep and drink our course, so there’s never a moment where we feel that we’re in debt for nothing. Plus, it won’t take us a lifetime to pay off our loan with our inevitably decent salary. 

And on top of that, the career opportunities are endless

We may not have the luxury of one seminar a week, but you can be sure we’ll be at the front of the grad scheme queue come third year. We’re constantly in demand, whatever our industry, be it directly in Engineering or Finance. The Economist also tipped us as being in the top bracket of highest-paying degrees by employability. Just going to leave this here.

J.P. Morgan are looking for Engineering students and grads to join their graduate and internship programmes 

Work for one of the world’s biggest banks with responsibility from day one and huge career progression 

Apply to J.P. Morgan’s graduate or internship programmes here