Despite shows like Silicon Valley showing engineers to be chauvinistic, neurotic social misfits, the reality is there are so many vibrant individuals who study engineering.

With people as varied as Teri Hatcher to Neil Armstrong having holding engineering degrees, it’s time to update our cliches of who engineers are. So, here are four types of engineering students you are bound to come across.

#1 The Straight-Up Genius

Just like the great Alan Turing (immortalised in The Imitation Game), it’s quite obvious these are the individuals who will make the most profound impact on our society with their brilliant ideas.

They typify what should be the classical engineering student: passion for their course and a love numbers, machines and computers.

Many of these geniuses showed promise early, whether they were solving the Rubik’s cube in record time or coding since the age of five. Their pure love for engineering also means they’re very generous with their time in helping other students.

It can occasionally be a bit of a challenge to understand them as their minds simply work differently to the rest of us mere mortals.

#2 The Future CEO

The future CEO types are the most ambitious and ruthless students one will come across in an engineering degree. Engineering might be interesting to them but their eyes are more on the high-flying corporate life.

Their belief is that that the quantitative skills learned from doing a technical degree will lead them to a lucrative career in the financial sector, just like the New York-based billionaire and politician Michael Bloomberg who studied Electrical Engineering.

These students show more interest in updating their LinkedIn profiles and attending networking events as opposed to attending tutorials, but their goal-driven personality helps them maintain those distinction grades.

#3 The Student Who’s In It For The Job

These students most likely gave engineering a go because of the higher job prospects and the fact that they achieved high marks in science and maths at school.

Some of these students learn to enjoy engineering while the rest find ways to get through the grinding four years without ever waking up passionate about their degree. They’re also the most likely to complain about the huge contact hours.

They’ll complete all assignments in groups as a survival mechanism.

#4 The Jocks

Possibly the closest thing to the frat-boy culture that an engineering student will get to experience! The Jocks are the play-hard, work-hard and party-hard types who everyone else looks at in awe because of their amazing ability to balance good grades with a hectic social life.

While there is no doubt a damaging sexism problem within certain elements of the group (known as Brogrammers in the technology sector), the nice Jocks are fun to hang out with and draw people with their energy and charisma.

The Jocks tend to be the ones who represent the engineering faculty at sporting events, perform in the faculty revues and often share the executive positions in societies with the Future CEO types.

Sameer Murthy is an Electrical Engineering student at the University of Sydney. His hobbies include cricket, reading and having passionate debates about the motivations of Game of Thrones’ characters.

(Lead image: Silicon Valley/HBO)