“Talk to the hand,” said the professor, “but only during my office hours on Tuesday and Thursday between 5 and 7 p.m. in HSS.”
Photo by: Stephen Lightfoot
The prestigious Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego announced this week that it will open up a brand new Bachelor of Science program with its maverick Social Engineering major. This bold move will make UCSD the first university in the nation to offer such a program that aims to produce the pettiest, most cunning, and most spiteful citizens.
“We are really excited about this new major and believe it will be another distinguishing factor for our university,” said Chair of the Recruitment Committee for the nascent Social Engineering department Kristy Chambers. “We are hiring faculty from all across the globe who are experts at manipulation, passive-aggression, and gossip.
“These are individuals who have started international conflicts and provoked high-profile divorces — truly the best in their field.”
Like all Jacobs School majors, Social Engineering will be a capped major beginning with the incoming Fall 2018 class. Kyle Chen, Class of 2022 and Social Engineering student, feels lucky to have been admitted into the major as a freshman.
“This is an incredibly competitive program to get into,” acknowledges Chen, “but I think what sets me apart from other applicants is the fact that I was president of my school’s Young Instigators chapter. During the prom season, we as a club were able to break up six couples in the week leading up to the dance, and we caused three fights at the prom after-party: our most successful year yet!”
For students who might not have the same hands-on experience as Mr. Chen coming into college, they can rest assured that the classes offered by the department will leave them well prepared to sow seeds of discord in their future careers. Social Engineering students can expect to gain a number of valuable skills in their classes, starting with lower division courses such as SOCE 12: Starting Drama, all the way to upper-division seminars that offer real-world experience such as SOCE 157: Getting More Than You Deserve. In that course, the students’ final grades will be based on whatever scores they are able to force out of the teacher.
“UC San Diego has always been something of a maverick institution, and the opening of the Social Engineering major is a clear continuation of that legacy,” said Chancellor Pradeep Khosla in his opening address at a recent black-tie dinner in honor of the new program. “Get ready to get messy, Tritons!”
