Cappelletti 1

John Cappelletti

Jan Rieman

11/17/2010

ENGL 1103

The Struggles of an Engineering Student

Through out school, students are put through year after year of grueling

challenges and whoever comes out on top will get the most money. This is the way

school is and is also the way of life, but there are some aspects of school that just seem to

be adding extra stress for no benefit at all. It seems as if the school system wants to give

the students as many problems as possible and see how they handle it. Through my

experiences has a student all the way up to freshman year in college, I have concluded

that English class is at the top of the stress giving courses. I also believe the fact that I am

an engineer makes English even worse. The ideas and concepts brought up in English

class simply are not within the desired learning pool of the common engineer and this

creates massive levels of stress. The main reasons for this are caused by low student

credibility, requiring research and citations, and also by forcing students to show false

interest in their writing topics. These are only a few reasons out of many which cause

English class to be difficult and stressful for engineers.

In English class, all work is subject to someone’s opinion meaning the grades

received from the work also rely on someone’s opinion. A student’s life revolves around

their grades; they are what we work for day in and day out and also have a major impact

on our futures. When this important aspect of our lives is controlled by someone’s

opinions rather than the correctness of the work, it creates a stressful environment. Other
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subjects such as math, science, and even history are not subject to the teacher’s opinions.

Points are given based on facts and proofs which are solid and unchanging. Points given

in English are different; some teachers will naturally have differing opinions on what is

acceptable and what is out right nonsense. In Tierney and Pearson’s, Toward a

Composing Model of Reading, they acknowledge that writers compose meaning and

argue that readers do too in saying, “So may a reader’s goal be procedural, substantive, or

intentional or a combination of all three” (Tierney and Pearson 569). They are arguing

that a reader’s goals are intentional and direct and that they read with certain mentalities

or presumptions. A teacher does this everyday and will read with a mentality that there

are errors. It is their job to do this and is why it is rare, in my experience, for an English

teacher to give a one hundred on any final draft of a writing assignment. This uncertainty

of success and constant idea of, your work can never be perfect, is what makes English

stressful for engineers.

Engineers are trained to make things work and to make them work under finite

conditions. There is an absolute measure of success and there are solid parameters and

requirements for every project. English papers are the complete opposite; there are no

finite requirements and no certainty that your work will be acceptable and correct. It is

simply caused by the open ended, free nature of English writing. It makes getting the

points in English class require more thinking about what the reader wants to hear than

what the right answer actually is. Engineers have a hard time thinking in this way and

would much rather know exactly what the problem is instead of throwing an answer

together and hoping it solves most of it. One way to improve this uncertainty and know

your work will receive a higher grade is to include well documented, relevant resources.
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This ensures that, even if you do not have a clue what you’re saying, you included solid

information about the topic. This idea of researching and citing sources is required for

most writing assignments. It does improve the quality of a students paper can also be a

major cause of stress.

Research and citation work is especially stressful for engineers because, first of

all, it means their own ideas are not good enough, and second, because they can not

simply research and incorporate someone’s ideas easily. The writer must specifically cite

each and every sentence used and is unable to simply incorporate all the main ideas of the

other writer. This can sometimes restrict the author to using certain quotes and not

revealing all of the important points. An engineer is supposed to relay all important

information with out leaving anything out. If something is restricting that ability, they

have to leave out parts of their ideas that are equally as important and that is what makes

it stressful. If an engineer was to doubt themselves or their knowledge on the job, they

would research the missing information and then use it freely in future projects. On one

of my engineering teacher’s powerpoints the first crucial habit of engineers is to, “take

the initiative to learn new skills on the job, be driven by my values, and read readily and

know what is needed” (Blackmon 1). It is in an engineers nature to research information

about what they’re working on and directly copy others procedures. In English class, this

is a classis example of plagiarism and is why engineers and English citations do not mix.

Engineers respect and acknowledge other engineering work such as a new product design

or innovation because that is their field of work and they see the need for giving credit.

English is usually not part of their field of interest which means they would not as readily

consider giving credit to another writer for their work because they do not fully
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understand why the author is so innovative. To an engineer, all writing not pertaining to

engineering is relatively unimportant and therefore does not require them to give the

author credit; It is simply a different way of thinking.

Including research is also supposed to make your ideas more credible because the

reader knows you got it from a credible source. If the writer is able to read intellectual

documents, make sense of them they should be able to use that information in their own

writing because they now know it. This is only one side of the argument which is also

supported by Porter. In his work called, Intertextuality and the Discourse Community, he

explains that, “all writing and speech---indeed, all signs---arise from a single network”

(Porter 34). Writers construct their text from bits and pieces of others that they have read.

The only difference with these pieces is that they are too hidden and insignificant to be

noticed compared to the ones freshly learned. This means that it is impossible to cite all

of your sources making citing sources obsolete. There is only one problem with this; the

line between read, copy, and forget and truly understanding can never be identified.

Citations are needed in school because there is no way to know if a student merely copied

and pasted the information or actually researched it and understands it. Requiring

citations also makes the grades less opinionated. Students get reliable, unbiased points for

including their research and citations. This is what engineers like to see; defined

requirements and defined outcomes. At the same time, however, the students are forced

to include research from outside sources that they may not need. Being forced to include

unwanted information makes writing that paper exceedingly stressful.

Forcing students to show false interest in a topic also generates unnecessary

stress. It is difficult for anyone, let alone an engineer to produce quality work on a subject
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they hate. Steven Covey in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, says,

“let me reiterate that the skills will not be effective unless they come from a sincere

desire” (Covey 252). This book is read worldwide and plays a major role in determining

correct business and engineering character to this day. If the engineer does not have the

passion or desire to do the work needed, that engineer should not be doing that work. It

goes against all morals for the engineer to work and create something they have no

passion for. This is exactly what English class requires of them every day. There are

other less disruptive cases of this even in engineering class writing. This is because

freshman year classes are not true engineering classes; they are preparation classes used

to find tune general skills in reading and writing just like a normal English class does. For

part of a writing assignment in Intro to Engineering everyone has to, “explain how being

ABET qualified gives you a well rounded education,” (Blackmon). This topic is purely

opinion based and has nothing to do with what the student actually believes. The purpose

of the assignment is to reflect on the work done so far in the class and to determine what

steps need to be taken to reach our overall carrier goals. Throughout the rubric there are

instances of hidden meaning and strange requirements. This assignment obviously has

roots in the curriculum and is aimed at getting students to think about their choices and

goals, but includes requirements that force students to have certain, pre-determined

opinions. This rubric is an example of how school’s curriculums force students to show

false interest and opinions about their topics, which is difficult and stressful for the

students.

In this paper I have included all of the required research and citations to support

my thoughts but no matter how well I put it all together, my instructor will find things
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wrong. There is no way to change this; writing is always subject to the readers opinions

and this opinion is usually against the student. Showing false interest, being forced to

research unwanted topics, and then being scrutinized for every tiny mistake, all make the

student writing process exceedingly stressful. With engineering mentalities on top of that,

English class becomes nearly impossible to handle. Through my years of schooling I

have finally figured out how to create well written papers, and have learned how it all

works. I have adapted to the English way of thinking and am able to produce relatively

acceptable work. I have accomplished this with the help of all my past teachers but

mostly from my final and only college English professor. I have accepted this new way of

thinking and will be able to use it for the rest of my carrier. Now the only question is, was

it worth all the stress to get here?

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Annotated Bibliography

Blackmon, Don 1. “Words of Wisdom”. ENGR 1201: Intro to Engineering. Moodle

(2010). Web. Nov 17 2010.
<https://moodle.uncc.edu/file.php/51688/Selected_Topics/Covey.pdf>

This power point only covers the information in Stephen Covey’s book cited below. It
covers habits 1 through 3 which are the most important of the 7. It is summarized and
redirected at young engineering students.

Blackmon, Don 2. “Whole Life Concepts and Disciplines Paper – Part 2.” ENGR 1201:
Intro to Engineering. Moodle (2010). Web. Nov 4 2010.
<https://moodle.uncc.edu/mod/assignment/view.php?id=210207>

In this rubric for an assignment in ENGR 1201: Intro to Engineering, there are many
requirements that are questionable. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the work
done so far in the class and to determine what steps need to be taken to reach our overall
carrier goals. Through out the rubric there are instances of hidden meaning and strange
requirements. This assignment obviously has roots in the curriculum and is aimed at
getting students to think about their choices and goals in the future. It includes
requirements that force students to have a certain, pre-determined opinion about what
their education means to them. This rubric is an example of how school’s curriculums
force students to show false interest and opinions about their topics.

Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review 5.1
(1986): 34-47. Print.

In this text, the author, James E. Porter, identifies and explains the concepts of
intertextuality and discourse communities. He uses information form The New York
Times, Famous Historical Records, and Universities such as Cornell and Brown. Using
this information he poses an attack on two of the most solid conceptions of writing which
are that writing must be original and that if a writer borrows ideas with out
acknowledging the source its plagiarism. Porter explores the idea that writers construct
texts from bits and pieces of other texts they have read. He uses examples such as the
Declaration of Independence to prove his point. The information is controversial and
reveals a different perspective on the way people write with a emphasis on the idea that
writing is never fully original.

Tierney, Robery J., and P. David Pearson. “Toward a Composing Model of Reading.”
Language Arts. 60.5 (1983): 560-80. Print.

In this article by Robert Tierney and David Person, they bring up the idea that reading
and writing is similar and that a reader adopts certain stances and opinions before starting
to read. They argue that there is a complex negotiation between writers and readers. They
show that the reader attempts to build the text as they go and can have predetermined
ideas about the meaning and context. At the time this article was written, Tierney was a
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writing researcher and Pearson had been researching reading and writing connections. In
this article they brought their ideas together to provide a deeper understanding of how
readers make meaning out of text.

Covey, Stephen. “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. New York, NY: Free Press,
1989. Print.

This book is widely accepted as the book to read if you’re a business or engineering
major. It has been published in many countries and many different languages. At one
point it was the number one national best seller. In the book, Stephen R. Covey presents
integrated, principle-centered approaches for solving personal and professional problems.
It is a book of character and self assessment. He reveals a step by step pathway for living
with fairness, integrity, and dignity. The lessons taught in this book are used by most big
businesses all around the world.