Alex Kirby Rebecca Agosta English 1101 18 November, 2013 Discourse Among UNCC Engineering Students The engineering

program at UNC Charlotte is quickly gaining reputability and popularity. It has grown to become one of the best engineering programs in North Carolina. I have been interested in the subject of engineering for quite some timein fact, thats why I came to UNCC in the first placeso it seemed like a natural choice to examine the UNCC Engineering discourse community for this assignment. Obviously, this is a very large community, so its unlikely that you will find all of its members in the same place at the same time. Like any other major, the majority of meetings are engaged in class. Recently I attended one of the classes to get an idea of how the members of this discourse community typically interact with each other. The class was pretty typical if youve ever been to a math class. It was held in a standard lecture hall for a large class size, but the class was not so big that the room was cramped. The lecture hall is very nice. Apparently the class was being held in the newest building on campus, which speaks to how much stake that UNCC puts in its Engineering program. I showed up a bit early. Some students sat alone, but most chatted amicably. I overheard conversations about homework, various engineering terms, and what people did over the weekend. The teacher had a presentation and went through it while the class took notes and asked questions, which Im told

is the way that almost all of the classes tend to play out. There was not a lot of student participation beyond asking questions and responding to clicker questions. Some students took notes while others chatted quietly or played on their phones, which is pretty typical of any college classroom. The class appears to be mostly made up of white, male students, which I expected based on stereotypes regarding Engineering majors, but there were some females and nonwhites scattered throughout. For the duration of the class, students would enter late and turn in their homework. I am told that, because of the distance of the Engineering building from the rest of the campus, many students tend to come in late. The professor seems to be used to it, which seems to indicate that the classperhaps the whole programis not as strict as one might expect it to be. It is likely that students are expected to take care of themselves, and those that cannot are simply dropped from the program. Being a lower-level engineering course, the only expert in the classroom was the teacher, which was obvious since he was the only one speaking for almost the entire class. I noticed that the lexis of this group tends to include many high-level math terms, some of which I dont recognize at all. Luckily, my roommate is majoring in Engineering, so I was able to interview him to gain some insider insight about the community. Interview follows: Q: Do you feel accepted? How long did it take for you to feel that way? Were there any obstacles involved in gaining the acceptance of your peers in Engineering? A: Yes, Ive felt accepted since the beginning. Pretty much everyone is normal and I guess we were all in the same boat from the start, so it was easy to fit in. Q: Is there special vocabulary that people in your major use that outsiders would not be familiar with?

A: Mostly just higher-level math terms and general terms for the drawing programs that we use. Stuff like that. Otherwise the language is all pretty normal. There are a few abbreviations that confused me in the beginning. For instance, we say diffe q as shorthand for differential equation. Also people were talking about having to take stats which was odd, because I thought Statistics wasnt a requirement for Engineering. Turns out they were talking about Statics, which is much harder. Q: There are lots of Engineering specializations. If you had the opportunity to switch, would you? What would you choose? A: Im in mechanical and Im really enjoying it. I think if I had to switch, Id go over to Motorsports, which is really just a branch of Mechanical, anyway. I just understand a lot of it already and I really enjoy the work that we do. Q: Besides the professors, who are the experts in Engineering? A: Definitely the seniors. You can always tell them apart from the rest of the students because theyre pretty much always helping someone out with something, or working on high-level modelling on the computer. Q: How do you typically communicate with other members of the Engineering program? A: Pretty much just talking in class, asking questions in class. Sometimes we have group projects and we text or email each other. Q: What kinds of multiliteracies are required in your major?

A: Solid modelling, which is using a computer modelling program like CAD to make shapes, basically. You need to be good at high-level math, integrals, and thermal physics, too. Its not easy, but I really enjoy it. Q: Is the Engineering major stereotyped in some way? What are the stereotypes? A: Everyone thinks were all male, nerds, antisocial, and good at math. Q: Do you feel like any of those stereotypes are accurate? What are some examples of their inaccuracies? A: Well, almost all of us are male, but were not really antisocial. Were all just regular people. We dont trust each others math, though. Ha ha. The UNC Charlotte Engineering program is full of intelligent, hard-working students whose goal is to learn about engineering and ultimately get a good job. They value education and intelligence, as is implied by the often-difficult nature of the tasks that they have to perform and the difficult subjects that they have to study. Despite the stereotypes, Engineering students are about as diverse and social as any other major. I expected everyone to be introverted and awkward, but the few people that I chatted with in the class that I observed seemed very friendly and outgoing. I look forward to joining the program myself once I have finally completed the necessary prerequisites.