Resistance Is Futile, But Fashionable

This flowchart is what happens when career counselors have a mental breakdown. Engineering? Only if you're "good with things." Chemistry? Congratulations on your future as a "fussy pedant." And let's not forget Computer Science, perfect for those who prefer "slow, indirect evil" over the more efficient varieties. The beautiful part is how it nails the existential crisis of every STEM student. "Why do you want to major in a STEM field?" Options include "curiosity" (adorable), "to save the planet" (delusional), or my personal favorite, the dawning realization that STEM was supposed to involve actual plants for Biology majors. After 30 years of teaching, I can confirm this is approximately 87% accurate. The missing 13% is the path where you choose your major based on which department has the least uncomfortable chairs in the lecture hall.

The eternal gap between theory and practice. Left: a 24-page technical manual with FDA regulations, component specifications, and a conceptual diagram for assembling a ham and cheese sandwich. Right: two slices of bread with nothing in between. Clearly someone skipped the "minimum meat content 50% by weight" section. The sandwich is giving strong "I followed the documentation" energy while being the exact opposite of what was intended. Just another day in the thrilling world of expectation vs. reality.

Nuclear energy gets the worst PR campaign in scientific history. Someone calls uranium "magic rocks that boil water" and they're technically correct—that's literally what nuclear power plants do. We split atoms to... heat water. Revolutionary! But one meltdown and suddenly everyone's treating nuclear energy like it killed their childhood pet. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are actively cooking the entire planet and we're like "but what about Chernobyl though?" The comparison to prehistoric humans abandoning fire after one accident is painfully accurate. Thirty years teaching thermodynamics and I've never seen a better analogy for our irrational energy policy. Nuclear power: it's just spicy steam.

Engineers staring at math and physics memes with that perfect mix of terror and fascination is the most accurate representation of engineering education ever created. We spend four years pretending to understand both subjects while secretly Googling "how to convert units" for the 47th time. The face says it all—"I should understand this, but also, what fresh hell is this equation?" Engineering: where you learn just enough of everything to be perpetually confused by specialist memes from both disciplines!

Ever wonder how different species of humans write division? 🤓 The evolution gets wilder as you go down! Regular folks use A/B, but scientists? They're too sophisticated for that slash nonsense. They prefer the elegant fraction bar. And those fancy scientists with their superscripts? Pure mathematical peacocking! But when you see F(A,B) with that summation symbol... that's your cue to flee the building. That's not division anymore—that's math having an existential crisis!

That moment of existential dread when you're staring at your 47th unsolvable problem set at 3 AM and suddenly remember... YOU chose engineering! Nobody forced you into this caffeine-fueled, sleep-deprived, equation-riddled nightmare! Your high school self had such grand dreams about "building cool stuff" and "changing the world" — but failed to mention the part where you'd be crying over differential equations while your business major friends are out partying! Self-inflicted suffering at its finest! *maniacal scientist laugh* Your tears are statistically significant, with p