What Students Say During Drafting

Drafting. Or, as Stuy would prefer you call it, TECHNICAL GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS TDS11 (and freshmen, no, it is not a class for writing down your first thoughts and then refusing to edit them because you can’t read anymore). For those who don’t spend a semester trudging up to the 10th floor and ignoring the burning in their lungs before plopping down on a glorified bar stool to draw some wAcKy shapes, drafting is an important yet seemingly impossible subject.

While Stuyvesant High School is a bustling hive of geniuses, seeing teenagers with 200 IQs struggling to draw parallel lines even with all of the sufficient tools to do so is humbling in its own right. It’s hard to imagine finishing a hand-drawn plate in less than half a period, let alone designing buildings that won’t topple over in the span of 20 seconds (props to our architects out there). We’ve compiled a list of things we’ve seen and heard in drafting classes, because it’s comforting to know that we’re not the only ones who just can’t see and draw things properly.

“Why are shapes so hard???”

“Do you think he’ll notice if I just shift this one over by a little bit? Just… freehand it?”

[The sounds of quiet sobbing can be heard off in the distance.]

“THIS LINE IS 1/32 OFF, AND I’M NOT OKAY WITH THIS.”

“Why is this chair so squeaky?” [squeak squeak squeak]

“AutoCAD, why you do me dirty like this?”

“Eraser shield, my true love, only you would not let me down in this cruel, cruel world.”

“This is basically complicated geometry except I’m really bad at this.”

[The sobbing has gotten louder.]

“You’re missing some hidden lines in this view.” “Yes, exactly, they’re invisible. So they’re hidden lines.” “You’re failing this class, you know.” “Yes, I know.”

“Last night, I tried to install AutoCAD, and it went from three gigabytes to 20.”

“There is absolutely no way I can smudge this drawing in AutoCAD.” [proceeds to smudge this drawing in AutoCAD]

“Is this enough eraser shavings for my T-square? I can’t see the drawing anymore.”

[This person is still sobbing.]

“Block 16, I hate you with a burning passion.”

“Do you think Brooklyn Tech takes sophomores? I mean, they don’t have drafting, right? RIGHT???”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

“Why are you not straaaight?” [realizes what has been said] “Oh shhh-oot.” [to entire room] “I didn’t mean it that way!”

“I could’ve opted out of the Stuy diploma. I could’ve gone to literally any other high school. I could’ve not gone to high school.”

“God forbid, if I have to draw another 7/32-inch line, I will tear this paper right down its axis of symmetry.”

“Last night, I had a terrible nightmare.” “What was it about?” “I dreamt that I did my whole drawing in pen, and when I moved my T-square down the ink smeared the whole page.”

[Opens AutoCAD] [AutoCAD crashes]

Another similar scene: [Opens AutoCAD] [draws one line] [dies]

“Inventor’s better than AutoCAD, right? It’s gotta be better. It’s definitely better.”

“Why? Why why why why why why why why.”

“GUYS, if I see you hold that T-square ONE more time like a Minecraft sword I WILL fail you both!”

[Five seconds later] “No, the compass point is NOT a concealed dagger! Now stop going for the jugular.”

The person sobbing has promptly gone to the nurse due to extreme dehydration. Clearly, they are too weak to wield the power of the T-square.

In conclusion, if you’ve taken drafting, congratulations on completing a Herculean labor of the highest degree. You now know how to use a pencil semi-well; good on you for that. And if you haven’t? Well, it’s not too late to transfer to Brooklyn Tech.