How distorted is my view of engineering/engineers? ?
EM POWERED asked:
I’m a senior in high school and I never considered engineering until this year. I’ve realized that I need a skill. I’ve gradually realized that engineering fits the bill - really, I’ve come to understand that society would be so utterly screwed without engineers.
But I think I may have an interest in it for the wrong reasons. First of all, I have a terrible foundation in the math and sciences. I have above average skills, but I took the wrong class set, so I’ll be rather behind once I get into college. And second, I really don’t like the math and sciences. I think I’ve done decently in high school because I’m willing to put some effort in it. So please comment on my assertion - is there a certain point you reach in your education where you can only master the material if you have the passion and interest in it (actually, this is just specifically about engineering)?
I’m also under the impression that engineering is very practical skill. For example, as an electrical engineer, I think you would be able to fix the circuitry in your computer if it malfunctions. Is true only to a certain extent? How much do engineers really learn how to do? I know that a single engineer is not responsible for a single warhead - it requires control engineering, mechanical engineering, etc… but how much can you expect to learn as an individual?
“Anything practical you learn will be obsolete before you use it, except the complex math, which you will never use. ”
This is what I’ve heard. That’s pretty disheartening. Can anybody tell me how true this is? … I’m guessing that engineering is a profession that requires constant education to stay updated. If I already dislike the material so much, I don’t know if I want to do a career that just keeps sending it my way. I’d really like a job where I learn a skill and just use it the same way until I retire (yes, I’m boring).
“Managers, not engineers, rule the world.”
This is also kind of sad. I highly admire their engineers for their work - really what they do is so vital to our society’s lifeline. I don’t know how true this is, but it does seem that engineers don’t get the credit they deserve (what about the money? some managers make bank…for what?). Anybody want to comment?
“You consider ANY non-engineering course “easy”. ”
I feel this is very true. Engineers are extremely intelligent people. I doubt that it is for me, but this quote alone makes me feel I’m not really learning anything and that I’m not challenging myself in college unless I study engineering. I’ve applied myself in high school and I really like I’m throwing away an investment by not studying engineering… but still.
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Filed Under Engineering |
Tagged With Control Engineering, Math, Mechanical Engineering
Comments
4 Responses to “How distorted is my view of engineering/engineers? ?”
Forget about the coursework. Focus on the real work. If you are going to have a career you are going to be doing the real work for a good long time. If you don’t like doing it, you are not going to be happy. So go invent something! I expect that it isn’t going to involve Fourier transforms. If you don’t love it, there are other fulfilling ways to make a living.
Any successful career is based on having a certain amount of enjoyment for what you are doing. If you don’t look forward to going to work then you won’t be successful or happy.
Yes, it is possible to make a lot of money as an engineer but at what price. You need to take some aptitude tests as well as some that identify your likes and dislikes. I think you will find these can be very helpful and much more accurate than you can imagine.
I was fortunate, I decided when I was a junior in high school that I wanted to be an engineer and I have never regretted my choice because I found a career that I enjoyed and that resulted in me being very successful and happy. I never dreaded going to work, I always looked forward to a new assignment, task or location.
Suggestion:
Go to your Physics teacher and get involved in a design project:
Egg Drop
toothpick bridge
rubber band car
etc.
Solve the design WITHOUT asking any of us how to do it. Get books and figure it out by yourself.
Did you enjoy doing the project? If so, you have the makings of an engineer. If not, perhaps you should look elsewhere for a life’ work.
From the middle of your essay - any profession these days requires constant education and updates - the testing procedures in many and the expectations of bosses and clients demand it.
Engineering is such a broad expanse that it is hard to give one answer to your query. An engineer whose job is fitting a production line into an existing building, specifying conveyor belts and production machines, will have far less to do with mathematics (and a lot more to do with actual detailed measurements) than a person faced with fitting a steel structure into a modern architect’s design for a building that perches on two supports and cantilevers out over the street, especially in earthquake or hurricane country. An engineer who designs the material processing programs will have far more math needs than the engineer who uses those programs to make airplane parts of titanium and carbon fiber fit together and watches them function on the screen in simulation, not to mention simulating shipping and assembling them.
If you believe that non-engineering courses are easy, then the math load of economics will surprise you and the detail required to prepare you for medicine (where you can immediately take lives if you blunder) will probably overwhelm you.
Am I an engineer? Nope. I am a technologist - I have worked with computers and teaching and designing and inventing all my life. At the end of high school aircraft design was what I wanted. I was admitted to a very good engineering school and learned first that my study habits as a big frog in a small school environment were undeveloped. I had to leave that school because of poor grades in core subjects and did well in a lesser school, but found when I went up against statics and dynamics and harder math (and got better reading glasses) that what I liked was technology - gee whiz - not the nitty gritty detail work of engineering. I spent a good chunk of my life doing computer programming for small businesses and found people who were whizzes with computer chips, which I at least understood, that were bewildered at programming, which I excelled at. Yet when none of my clients wanted to go to Windows and programming for Windows got revised by MicroSoft every 3 years to a whole new model, I drifted and got left behind. Which applies to your desire to keep the same thing all your life - can’t be done, in music, in management or in engineering.