It's what being an adult is like. You don't study for the fanfare, you study for a goal or for yourself.
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
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That and if you have a significant other, you might also score a celebratory shagging.
Edit: Never mind, just realized this is an anon on 4chan posting about engineering school.
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I think it's practical. I haven't known many engineer types to make a huge deal of graduation per se. It's just the next step in a bigger procedure.
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I’m kind of surprised; most colleges and universities I’ve seen still have a ceremony for people graduating at the end of the fall semester. It’s not nearly as elaborate as the one ending the spring semester, but it’s still something.
Still, most of life is going to be like that. Usually no real ceremonies for the last day on the job. Move out of your old house/apartment is a lot of work at the end and then you lock the door for the last time.
Congratulations, you’re an adult now.
Slight difference; being an ex on has the opposite effect on your ability to get a job.
Agreed, Exxon is a horrible company but I hear the pay is good. It would be tough for an ex-con to get a job as well.
Oof, touché.
Leaving it as is.
I've never attended a singe scholarly celebration since my middle schools where I went and realized that it was completely pointless
plus the whole preparation and fanfare is draining for me, id like to actually celebrate by relaxing not stressing over an event
I feel that. Too many people, and most are just sitting there, looking at other people and clapping.
Validation need not come from anywhere outside yourself. Set your own goals. Do your best. Pat yourself on the back. People who 'recognize' you only do so superficially anyway. No one can truly know what you've done or where you've been.
I mean, sure, but it is still nice to have some external validation now and again you know?
In monetary form even.
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Two things. 1. If you hated it maybe it was the wrong choice, 2. You can walk in the spring commencement if you want to, that’s what I did for grad school.
I love engineering, I hated University. The framework of school is not for everyone and reading 300 pages of complex stuff every week for 4 years is boring to death and it isn't for me, and for a lot of people.
School of all levels caters to one type of learning, and not everyone is good with that style.
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- if you hated engineering in uni, will you love the work afterwards?
Depends if who you work for. If you work for bad management prepare for some goon to tell you what you should be doing, be wrong about what they tell you, not know what they want, and to demand it sooner than you tell them it will take. They will then change their mind and still expect it to take less time. They will be constantly frustrated with you and you will hate it.
Good management will find work with clear value to customers and you will feel valued and be given *mostly adequate time to do your work. You will put in your hours and be paid. You'll still be jerked around by typical corporate politics, but it's everywhere so buckle up. Better than ditch digging unless that's what you want.
Good management should insulate engineers from most of the corporate politics. My manager, for example, knows we get surprises, so they add in extra time to whatever estimate we give, and he tells stakeholders that this is a firm estimate, which they'll inevitably push back on and they'll concede down to something a little higher than our initial estimate (i.e. handle the corporate politics).
Depends on the person, depends on the University.
From what I've seen (very old anecdote here, take with salt) some engineering colleges will do everything within the ethics/honor code to obstruct your path to 2nd year. Then they do it again for 3rd. The result are brutally hard classes that are designed to weed students out more than teaching the subject at hand. Even on its best day, school doesn't mirror the real world, but neither does semester after semester of arbitrary hurdles for a degree. The workplace simply has entirely different, but far more palatable, bullshit on offer. IMO, it's completely valid to hate school but love your job afterwards.
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I just didn't go to my graduation ceremony, despite there being free dinner. Was (and had been for ages) struggling with pretty bad depression and didn't feel I deserved any of it.
I graduated in the winter in 2023, didn't attend the ceremony or anything. I have really bad social anxiety so the ceremony seemed like more stress than a celebration for me, I just ordered food and relaxed. But I do remember, after walking out of my last final, thinking "damn do that's it huh", I know it's just a bachelors degree but I didn't believe in myself enough to even think I'd ever actually graduate. Things turned out okay though, even had a job lined up before graduation which was lucky given the current job market for software engineering. Believe in yourself, your hard work got you that degree, proud of you man!
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I also skipped my graduation. But just because I don't like that kind of stuff.
Why do you feel like you didn't deserve to graduate? I'm sure you did deserve it.
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Didn't go to any of mine outside of high school because I was a kid and my parents could force me on that one. By the time I finished grad school I really felt like I was just another person in an increasingly growing rat race. It's not even that I haven't accomplished anything so much as I haven't accomplished anything particularly unique that sets me apart and grants me intellectual value.
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If one is not inclined to social gatherings but still feel a need for something to signal this passage (or any other), a good option is to perform a personal ritual of choice.
Human brains seem to be inclined to appreciate symbolism.
While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think that the lack of ritual is the underlying problem here.
The school to hospice informal incarceration pipeline is omnipresent for the working class, and college/trades level is right there in the middle. Right after kid jail and before wage slavery.
I dunno, I prefer this to having to take care of cows and growing my own crops.
Life and the endless crushing need for resources is the prison.
False dichotomy. This has nothing to do with cows and crops on some imaginary "farm". In reality there's no actual need for people to slave away their whole lives serving capital just so we can destroy the planet.
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Yeah I just had em mail me the thing
We are, we are, we are, we are
We are the engineers!
We can, we can, we can, we can
Demolish forty beers
Drink rum, drink rum, drink rum, drink rum
And come along with us!
'Cos we don't give a fuck about anyone else
Who don't give a fuck about us.
That's what the first engineer I ever met said, but to be fair he was a combat engineer. Those guys are scary. Stick to electronics and bridges...
I have an MSc and have spent the day cleaning gutters, I have no idea what to do and am unsure whether I'd be better off dead.
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I wonder why they hated school. Maybe the problem was the school and not the topic? Otherwise I feel sad for them disliking the topic they chose as a career path :(
I feel like there's so much interesting stuff out there, there must be something useful that they find at least interesting.
Engineering school is pretty brutal. I love the career and in many ways I loved the schooling, but it was long nights of hard work on difficult stuff, a lot of which you need to understand for the profession but won’t have to do personally outside school. As a whole engineering school has a reputation because of that disparity as well as because some people go through it because it’s a well paying career and not because it’s where they feel they will be happiest, and engineering isn’t a good choice for folks like that.
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Thankfully there is often a pretty big difference between studying and working.
I found there to be a level of stress in my studies that I never had a problem with later. An idea that any moment not spent pouring over books was contributing, at least in my mind, to inevitable failure; doubly so with exams looming ahead.
For me finishing my engineering degree was such a massive relief and work is so much better. I'm in anon's boat.
Life can definitely feel easier after you find a job with a steady workflow. It's the slow creep of responsibilities that will eventually overtake the stress of having been a student.
Oh the people who managed a few critical but rarely used pieces of equipment left? Looks like you'll have to figure out how to run it yourself now with limited notes. Your project is floundering because other departments aren't being upfront about their workload? Now you'll have to babysit their work and send constant emails asking them to do their job so you won't fall behind schedule. Are you a doc approver? Better take your laptop with you during vacation to be available for signing off on it.
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Educational institutions are mostly there either to make money or as a public necessity that the rich underfund to have a malleable electorate. The institutions are therefor often understaffed, incompletely equipped, or spending money on things of no benefit to education. The majority of lecturers are thus often quite underpaid, overworked, and unmotivated, which leads to many students being unimpressed.
There are very few institutions and staff that really can show up to work with a smile and be satisfied with their employment.
It's at times baffling and yet understandable why people do not vote for people or parties that want to treat education as a priority. They are a product of the influence of the rich and powerful on our institutions. That this dude is unsatisfied is no surprise to me.
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