The Engineering Enigma: What DO They Actually Do?

The forgotten middle child of the metric system strikes again! This meme brilliantly captures how the decimeter (dm) gets completely ignored while millimeters, centimeters, meters, and kilometers get all the glory. Poor little dm is relegated to the sad cat in the corner, desperately seeking attention like that one unit you vaguely remember from 5th grade science class but never actually used in real life. The metric system is supposed to be perfectly logical with its powers of 10, but somehow we collectively decided that measuring things as 0.1 meters or 10 cm was better than saying 1 dm. It's the mathematical equivalent of being left on read.

Mike's face says it all—thermodynamics isn't just a subject, it's an existential crisis . That equation (dQ = dU + p·dV) is the First Law of Thermodynamics, essentially saying energy can't be created or destroyed, just transferred while making everyone's life complicated. The smoke around him perfectly symbolizes the mental fog that descends when trying to balance energy equations at 2AM before finals. Energy is conserved, but your sanity? Absolutely not. The face of someone who just realized the universe is just one giant heat transfer problem that ends in maximum entropy.

The crushing reality of aerospace engineering! That moment when you're designing a rocket but can't remember if the sparknotes for military standard 1250 said to use titanium or aluminum alloy. Your $2 billion project hangs in the balance while you frantically google technical specs that should probably be committed to memory by now. The massive hunched posture is just what happens after calculating thrust-to-weight ratios for 72 consecutive hours. Brain too full of differential equations to remember basic materials science? Welcome to the glamorous world of making things that go whoosh!

Engineering departments bursting at the seams while pure mathematics sits empty? Yep, that's modern education in a nutshell! Everyone's scrambling for those "practical" degrees that promise employment, while abstract mathematical theory collects dust. The irony? Those engineering formulas they're studying were developed by the mathematicians they're avoiding. It's like everyone wants to drive the car but nobody wants to know how the engine works!

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.

Nikola Tesla casually plugged into a wall outlet before rock bands were even a concept. The electrical pioneer was probably just enjoying some alternating current/direct current through those primitive earbuds while the rest of humanity was still arguing about which electrical standard would win. When you've invented wireless transmission, you get to listen to music that won't exist for another century. That's just how temporal electrical engineering works.