Read this blog’s related story.

When you try to compare two dissimilar things, it̢۪s usually referred to as a metaphor.

What two majors could be more opposite than mechanical engineering and print journalism?

On the one hand you have mathematical concepts and craftsmanship, and on the other you have this blog, this blog̢۪s related story and a zillion other non-fiction articles found floating in cyberspace.

Prepare to be shocked, this isn̢۪t a metaphor: Journalists are mechanical engineers, molding all the parts together in the safest way to present a final product to consumers.

How did I come to this conclusion? It was a discussion of ethics I had with one ASME student, Luke Clark.

I soon found myself as not just an interviewer, but as an interviewee when Clark began asking me questions about The Collegian and my major. We came across several differences, most obviously that I can̢۪t stand mathematics and that even though mechanical engineers have to write technical reports, writing is not a desirable task to Clark.

But what we did agree on was ethics.

At one point I rattled on about print journalism and how I feel it̢۪s superior to other mediums in my field when it comes to ethical responsibilities because newspapers printed today will be historical documents tomorrow, Clark agreed and discussed the ethics in engineering.

“If you take cost effective shortcuts, or just shortcuts to try and finish the job quickly, then that can endanger someone’s life,â€Â Clark said. “In the case of the race car, minor mistakes in wiring can cause sparks to fly and the car to explode, killing the driver. We have to be meticulous and do everything to avoid this from happening.â€Â

In this day and age of people always cutting corners to spend the least amount of money for the most profit. It̢۪s scary to think that an unethical person would become an engineer. Luckily though, that rarely happens because if you cut corners in college once and are found out, you̢۪d never be able to get a job.

This is the same in journalism, if you plagiarize or distort the truth, your career is in the can.

The revelation that two opposite things can have the same moral standard is amazing and shows that American ethics leaps over boundaries to connect us all with the common goals of hard work and honesty.

I hope America never loses these morals completely to the hunger for money, but sadly another similarity we noticed was that there are less and less print journalism majors and less and less opt for engineering, as well. Could this be a decrease in ethics? Abandoning the hard, perhaps underpaid, ethical vocations for the best money makers?

It could be. I just hope not. This country can use more ethical engineers.