this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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That's because you haven't worked in academia and haven't seen undergrads fantasize like this with regularity.
Ah yes my wildest fantasy: to find out that the ideas I think are new and original have been studied well beyond my level of understanding by other people lol
I hope you’ve never worked in academia. You sound like you really like discouraging people from enjoying science unless they meet your arbitrary education standards.
Anyone can do science. Sure, sometimes people who don’t know a lot learn a little and think they know a lot, but you shouldn’t just shut them down. If someone has a passion for exploration you should encourage them to keep going, catch their mistakes sure, help them question their thought process, but remind them that making mistakes or thinking an idea is novel when it isn’t is something everyone does and they shouldn’t be ashamed for it.
I'm shaming you for being a liar who misrepresents himself.
I haven’t intentionally misrepresented myself in this comment section or the previous one or any others as far as I can think of.
I also have not lied.
So, what is the real reason for the aggression mate?
Ah I think I know what this is about now. If you come from a country like Canada where “Engineer” is a protected designation, then I can understand you thinking it’s a lie and I apologize for that misunderstanding.
In America and my state specifically, the word “professional engineer” is protected and requires certification, but “engineer” does not. There were several people in the civil engineering firm in my hometown who were called engineers and only had highschool diplomas, but that didn’t change the fact they were experienced engineers and called engineers.
In other fields of engineering, like software engineering, you’ll find lots of people with the title of engineer without a degree.
I’m sorry that you felt mislead by me calling myself an engineer despite the fact I’m still in school and only an engineer by title for my research. But that was not an intentional deception, simply a discrepancy between our cultural definitions of the term/title.
Also, I have made it far and will likely continue to push on in academia (though I’d like to get out of this country before starting a PhD so that complicates things).
Anyway, I’m sorry that I’ve offended you and that my attempts to explain/defend myself have come off as petulant. I’ll stop engaging with your comments and you should feel free to block me if you don’t want to come across my posts and comments again.
I’m sorry I wasn’t able to explain things more clearly/calmly sooner and for what it’s worth I’ll try to avoid calling myself an “engineer” without a qualifier stating I’m a student or researcher now that I know some places are more strict about the term.
Edit: Might be important to mention that there are still regulations in civil engineering (and other fields) that require certification at some step. Like any design of infrastructure in my state (and I think most others?) requires the stamp of a certified Professional Engineer. You can create designs without the certification but if it’s going to be used by lots of people or affect them adversely through failure, you are supposed to get it checked off by a PE before it gets built / put into use.
You sure you're not just oversensitized to it? This feels like a false positive.
When an undergrad says "I'm an engineer" there is no debate, it's a case of lying. Nobody can begin their studies and skip to titles. Nobody starts law school and calls themselves a lawyer. Nobody starts an undergrad and calls themselves a scientist.
The only people who do this are children who wickedly mispurport themselves to facilitate authority and look smart. It's the definition of being a charlatan.
Are you sure you're not under sensitive to people straight up lying and denigrating an entire, important industry full of folks who actually waited to graduate and work in the field before dubbing themselves a professional?
It's normal where I live for students to say that. You can argue with that, but then I'd say it's not worth singling out one person.