Career Day

Today I give a presentation to a full house of middle schoolers on how to be just like me. That’s right, the local school district has asked me specifically to come and give a presentation on that subject. I’ll be molding those pliant, developing young minds for 35 minutes (best estimate). You might ask why the local junior high has decided this is a good idea.

It’s because I’m awesome.

Knowing that I could easily prattle on about that subject for days (maybe even weeks!), they’ve asked me to try to focus on my work as an engineer as the unifying theme of the presentation. It’s an odd choice. Not the most pulse-pounding foundation I could have suggested, but I’ll do anything for the fans. They were hoping I could spend some extra time discussing the challenges and qualifications relating to doing work in an engineering discipline.

Everyone knows that the biggest challenge faced by most engineers is communication skills. If you’re an engineer, everyone assumes you can solve pretty much any problem. The trouble is in telling the underlings how you plan to do that without resorting to a language of grunts, shouting, antisocial rage, and general derision. To show that it’s possible to get past this obstacle, I was thinking I could spend some time sharing some selected samples of my writing with the students. I think I’ll do a few readings from my blog. My eleven-part series on “Why Pedophilia Is Sometimes Ok” is an in-depth argument on a serious problem. I’ll bet that would make my case while still being a hit!

Next, people complain that engineers don’t know how to be creative. This is the point where I can really dazzle them! I’ll just throw some slides of my webcomic together in a “Powerpoint” presentation and chase them with some slides of some of my most involved paintings. After all, one of the most important ingredients is a solid presentation is a generous helping of humor! Maybe I’ll break my own rule and let them try to work through the mystery of my largest painting as a group (instead of individually)!

Since this is a class of middle schoolers, it would probably be wise to try and tell them that a life in engineering doesn’t have to be boring. A lot of young people think that the job goes hand in hand with a dull social life. To try and defeat that notion, I think I’ll just go through the “contacts” directory in my cell phone and tell the most interesting story for each person there as it jumps into mind. There are a lot of people in there, so I’ll have to be pretty quick. “If you ever visit C.A., don’t sit on his couch. Trust me. Oh, and then there’s G.A! A lot of people think he has abs like that because he’s a top tier ice skater, but no. And if you ever visit J.A., don’t eat her brownies unless you know what’s up. By the time you finish one, you’ll have forgotten. And let’s not forget A.B.! Ever since July, all her friends call her Frosty the Snowball!’”

By the time I get through with that, time will be running short, so I’ll just sum up my current career in a nutshell. Something like, “And if you do well in Chemical and Biological Engineering, you can do pretty much anything you want. If you pay attention and get good grades in class, I’d be willing to bet that any one of you could come out able to make pretty much ANYTHING from the comfort of your own garage or kitchen, let alone in an industrial setting!”

At that point, I could just relax and take some questions. This should be fun!