Reactions

As you all may or may not know, I am a girl in mechanical engineering. I'm not making myself to be special or superior to any other person in any other program but it's just a fact of life that you don't see that every day.

When you meet people, you obviously have to go through the small talk of school and what program you're studying. It's inevitable. I think asking people what book they're currently reading is a much more interesting form of small talk. I am going to make that a thing. But of course, when I tell people what I'm studying, I get THE BEST reactions. They're usually extreme and there's always the typical ones but I've gotten some pretty atypical ones. Since I get a kick out of them, I figured you dudes might too and this is what the rest of this post entails.

1. Wide eyes. This is usually when they're trying to mask the fact that they had a reaction altogether and go on to regular answer like "Oh, are you liking it?" and "Are you living in residence?"

2. "I'm so glad there are people like you..." This comes from people who can't believe anyone would want to continue doing math voluntarily. They kind of make a joke where they're thankful that "people like me" exist because if it were up to them to do what I will be doing once
I graduate the world would start crumbling in on itself.

3. Genuine questions. There are people who know a few things about the classes I'm taking and ask how I'm finding them and all that. I like giving them feedback.

4. The future-thinkers. These are the same people that always asked what you were going to major in back when you were in high school. Now that you've got that pretty much cemented in, they move on to the next big milestone: your career. You are asked what you plan to do with your degree and where you'd like to live and basically all the questions that make you want to go back to kindergarten where everything was safe and certain.

It's always the creepy old people too

5. BOYS. WINK. This reaction is by far the creepiest and kind of the most insulting. This is where they point out that engineering is mostly filled with people with XY chromosomes. They ask for ratios of girls to guys in your classes, and, inevitably, talk about how easy it will be for me to find a boyfriend. Like whoa, who has time for a love life when you're taking these kinds of classes. That is definitely not my number one priority.

6. Doom predictors. These people know of other people who also decided that they could handle becoming an engineer but ended up doing really badly or dropping out or switching to a different program and on the outside I'm all like cool story bro but on the inside I freak out because it's not like I was a child prodigy or anything I've had to work hard and what if it's not enough and my entire life falls to pieces before my eyes.

Your turn! Tell me about the funniest or most insulting or best reactions to whatever you're doing with your life!