Good news out of North Dakota State’s Engineering Department today, as we were told of plans for an Engineering Student Personal Development class (ME666 Intro to People Skillz).

In this classroom environment engineers will have the ability to work on areas that they might otherwise lack in.

Nonverbal communication, active ways to avoid crying and of course working on small talk, will be NDSU’s greatest focus when working with the engineers.

When asked to comment, Billy Bison, a sophomore in the mechanical engineering program had this to say, “Well, you know, the weather is nice outside today, um.”

President Dean Bersani was unavailable for comment, but sent us this comment, “We are a student focused, land grant, research university — engineering students need our help.”

“Our research has shown that 4/5 of engineering students avoid elevators due to their lack of small talk. Even more alarming is their inability to understand sometimes the most basic of jokes.”

NDSU expects not only for this to be beneficial to the engineering students, but also for many student run organizations.

“You see, we know just about everything,” Billy Bison remarked on engineer’s knowledge. “Talking to the people is the hard part.”

The plan at the moment is to place ME666 in all engineering major requirements. A five credit class, this course will be subject to the rigorous expectations of other required major classes.

Billy, when asked to comment on him having to take ME666 in the future, said, “It scares me more than Calculus 2 or Mechanics of Materials ever did.”

In a not so surprising development NDSU’s population of engineers are expected to get more “talkative” as engineers go about doing “homework” for their new class.

The Spectrum is expecting at least a 50 percent increase in awkward conversations about general engine components with complete strangers, an estimated increase of around 75 percent in conversations about “exams from last semester” and of course a 90 percent gross increase in the amount of “gosh I hate my semester” conversations with just about anyone who will listen.

Head of the ME department here at NDSU, Bill Socketwrench (no relation), had this to say about the future of his department, “We strive to have the best students, this class will help ensure that is the case. $250 for the book and online access code, and of course a bump in engineering major’s fees, and wa lah, our engineers can now talk. Take that UND.”