poets
Explanation
The Joke
In the first panel, an impassioned figure (presumably an engineer or scientist) declares that engineers have great souls and demands that they be treated like artists, like poets -- insisting "that's what we are!" This represents the familiar plea from STEM professionals who feel their work is undervalued as a creative or humanistic pursuit and want the cultural prestige typically reserved for the arts.
The second panel, labeled "Ever After," shows the grim result of getting exactly what was wished for. The engineer now has a Master's degree, and solid-state physics, acoustics, and Brayton-cycle turbines are all considered "liberal arts." The consequence is that the engineer is working as a barista, asking "Hope you're good at ordering coffee" -- because in practice, being "treated like a poet" means being treated as economically irrelevant and unemployable, which is the cruel stereotype often applied to liberal arts and humanities graduates.
The Humor
The comedy is a classic "be careful what you wish for" structure. The engineer's romantic plea to be recognized as an artist is granted literally, and the result is not elevated cultural status but rather the economic marginalization that artists and poets actually experience. The joke cuts in two directions simultaneously: it mocks engineers for naively romanticizing the life of a poet without understanding the material downsides, and it also highlights the genuine undervaluation of the humanities by showing that "being treated like a poet" is effectively a curse in economic terms.