All engineers are dorks.
All business students are lazy.
And don’t talk to the art kids-they’re only friends with each other.
Like any institution, Wash. U. harbors its own prejudices and stereotypes. A student’s school, or even track within a school, can influence people’s opinions about his workload, activities, social life and potential for employment.
Many people who work between the disciplines are quick to point out that no group of students is more capable or more talented than another group, and that generalizations about students undermine their range of abilities.
Think about it-are the stereotypes genuine? If you observe students on the quad, there’s no telling who studies what. Art students don’t wear berets. Pre-med students don’t carry stethoscopes. And you don’t see engineers walking around in hard hats (well, most of the time).
Still, some prominent generalizations about schools are rooted in fact.
In terms of coursework, for instance, the differences can be obvious. Because of its highly specific sets of skills, the School of Engineering has perhaps the most quantitatively rigorous program. The three classes that require the most academic mentoring from the Cornerstone Center for Advanced Learning are calculus, physics and general chemistry, all standard courses for an engineering student in her first semester.
Engineering freshman Matt Smerud has already noticed differences between his work and that of students in other schools.
“I’ve seen some of the [assignments] from the Business School and Arts & Sciences,” said Smerud. “[They’re] a little more moderate.”
Robert Koff, director of Cornerstone, acknowledges that engineers have a harder workload on paper. But he thinks that it is very hard to judge the difficulty of a curriculum just by using numbers.
“More credits mean a bigger workload,” said Koff. “But some classes are [at] different levels. You have to think about all those variables.”
For instance, the Olin Business School, which is sometimes called a “pre-school” because of its reputation for offering easy classes, requires a number of highly difficult quantitative classes. However, since the school provides its own tutors, most of the campus does not see business students struggling.
“I hear ‘B-school/ pre-school,’ but I think people actually just like the rhyme,” said freshman Anna Brody. “I really think it’s just about how much work you give yourself.”
Freshman Anna Paszkiewicz knows how difficult work can be in the Sam Fox School of Art, which also has a reputation for easy classes. She is planning on studying fashion, pre-law and international area studies.
“A lot of kids think that the art school is a blow-off thing,” said Paszkiewicz. “But while they’re studying for exams, we’re pulling all-nighters working on a project. You can’t turn in an incomplete art project and expect to get a grade.I pulled an all-nighter [during] the second week of school.”
The School of Art does indeed have a unique learning environment. It sometimes gets a bad reputation for being elitist because it is so separated from the rest of the school. It’s true that the school is somewhat physically divorced from the Danforth Campus and the farthest school from the South 40, but the Art School is also separated by more than just distance.
“Just today in the common room, I was doing my homework, which was to play with charcoal, and everyone else was having trouble with their calculus problems,” said Siena Baldi, a freshman. “So it’s sort of a different set of assignments-a whole different mindset.”
Baldi, who is also studying environmental sciences has noted profound differences between her courses in the School of Art and those in the College of Arts and Sciences. For instance, students in her art classes often refer to professors by their first name.
“There’s less of a distance between you and the professor that way,” explained Baldi.
But as much as the School of Art is different from its counterparts, the people inside it are the same.
“It seems like we’re antisocial, but it’s just because we spend so much time together,” said Paszkiewicz. “Be nice to the art students; they want to be your friends.”
Art students are not the only ones who are judged by their area of study. People often have the same bias against engineers, claiming that engineers segregate themselves from other students.
“The reclusive thing is definitely a big stereotype,” said Smerud. “It isn’t necessarily true, but I guess [the stereotype] goes along with [engineering] being math based. Most of the time when you go into engineering, you’re more logical. A math-sciences-based person and [these kinds of students] seem to have different personalities than arts-based [students].”
Far from being reclusive, engineers put on events for the whole school. For example, they host Cheap Lunch, a pizza buffet that takes place every Wednesday in Lopata Hall. They also participate in Engineers Without Borders, a program that sends students to struggling communities around the world to put their skills to good use.
The unique experiences that students gain from each discipline, far from complicating student life, can actually enhance the college experience. According to Koff, exposure to a variety of viewpoints is essential to real understanding.
“There are different ideas and methods in different disciplines, and they stem from differences in the physical sciences, social sciences and humanities” said Koff. “So that, for example, cause and effect in history is very different than cause and effect in physics. And it’s clear that if you don’t understand [the methodologies], you’re not going to be able to do research in these fields very well.”
It seems clear that school-related stereotypes don’t quite fit in the real world. Whether or not you use them is your choice-just make sure you say please when you ask the engineers to play with their robots.