What is Engineering?

One of the great attractions of engineering work is the huge variety of tasks and environments in which engineers find themselves working. From designing programs at a computer terminal, to overseeing maintenance operations for major structures like aircraft, ships, heavy earth moving equipment, mobile cranes and offshore oil platforms – there are many ways to be an engineer.

A great deal of engineering work is done with the aid of computers. This can range from design, testing, the control of systems, the direction of equipment and the analysis of the properties of materials.

Historically, mainstream engineering was divided into the four broad disciplines of chemical, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, with several branches within each discipline covering an enormous range of fields.

Today, we are seeing the emergence of new disciplines of engineering. 

Questions:

What spheres do engineers work?

What helps in the work of engineer?

What main disciplines was engineering divided into last centuries?

What do you think what disciplines is engineering divided into now?

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Read the story ofDale Jans, Immediate Past President of NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying) who says that engineering is a wonderful profession

Most engineers I know are very excited about what they do. They take great pride in knowing that they’re making a difference, improving the world, and making things safer and better. But many of the engineers I know are also not the greatest communicators about how engineering is a wonderful profession — and how it touches all of us daily.

NCEES recently conducted a survey about the general public’s perceptions of engineering. One of the findings is that most people think of the following words to describe engineers: smart, technical, and educated. That’s great, but we also need to get across that engineers are creative, innovative problem solvers. We need to start showing our excitement about our profession to others in our communities. We can do that by reaching out to students, parents, and teachers to let them know that engineering is fun, not just challenging.

We have to be better advocates for our profession, and that starts with making it personal. For example, competition among the students to have breakfast with local professionally licensed men and women engineers to learn about different types of engineering and to build balloon rockets. This is a great opportunity to talk to students one-on-one and to let them know that engineers are, in fact, real and relatable.

When we find opportunities like this to talk to people and reach out to students, we can show them that engineering is exciting. That’s one reason NCEES recently developed a new speaker’s kit to raise public awareness about what engineers do and why licensure is important. Whether you start small or big, you can take advantage of the resources that many engineering societies already offer and be an ambassador for the engineering profession.

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Read how British journalist Barrie Weaver writes about engineering sector in the UK

The UK Engineering Sector

The engineering sector employs 5.4 million people across 542,440 companies. Some are world leading and highly innovative, others form the bedrock of a broad manufacturing base. Together they are a crucial part of our economy and society. Yet their amazing achievements in safer and faster travel, communications, construction, health care, infrastructure, power generation and even sport seem to be taken for granted by our voracious consumer society.

Over the past 50 years engineering in the UK has suffered a dramatic fall from consciousness of the mass public. A large proportion of the population does not appreciate its criticality, takes its contribution for granted and yet is quick to blame when things ‘go wrong’.

Britain’s engineering is high-tech, very specialized, often part of a supply chain. Most are business to business organizations - what they do, or make, lies well outside the day to day experiences of the vast majority of us. The upshot is that these companies have never developed the ability to communicate what they do in simple terms to a general public. They don’t think they have to; it’s not part of their business. The end result is that 99% of the public include politicians and journalists, can’t understand what the majority of engineering businesses do.

The QE prize for engineering - awarded to the inventors of the internet - received depressingly little media coverage. Contrast that with the publicity, debate and coverage that surrounds the Turner Art and Man Booker Literary prizes - which are for tiny sums in comparison.

A further example of hidden achievements of engineering can be found in the delivery of the Olympic Park for London 2012. Congratulations for this were heaped on the Olympic Organising Committee, the government ministers, the ceremony directors, and the Mayor of London. The men and women who truly delivered these facilities were hardly mentioned.

Such missed opportunities to celebrate engineering are many, but they also offer the opportunity for change. I’m not suggesting engineers suddenly strive for celebrity status and the limelight; by their nature that is not in their character. What I am advocating is that the entire engineering community finds its voice and communicates in a much more accessible manner to a lay audience.

“Why should the engineering community bother?” you might say. “If that’s the public perception so be it”. Engineering needs to tap into the psyche of the student for theirs are the years of optimism and idealism. Well firstly it’s a matter of giving all engineers a feeling that their contribution to society is being recognized, but more importantly it’s our future. Having been out of favour with successive governments for years there is now a growing realisation, undoubtedly prompted by the demise of the financial sector, that engineering, and in particular high tech engineering, may, after all be the route for growth and financial stability.

But if we are to deliver on this Britain needs at least 100,000 engineering graduates every year. Currently there is a shortfall of 42%. And of those who do graduate in engineering more than a quarter choose occupations outside science engineering and technology seduced by the image of other walks of life. Add in the fact that only one in 10 of our engineers are female, the lowest in Europe and the challenge facing our engineering sector as it seeks to tap into the skills pool becomes truly apparent. Without a workforce equipped with the skills the economy needs, Britain cannot trade out of recession and will remain burdened by enormous debt for years to come. Already, engineering companies are having to turn away new business, business that is vital to economic growth, due to lack of skilled staff.

It’s time for Engineering Companies to find their voice and make their subject tangible, exciting and meaningful to the ‘everyman’. To throw off the inward looking, grey image and show that their careers embrace technology, are challenging, socially important, fun and rewarding both financially and intellectually.

Engineering UK’s initiative to boost science in schools has been a bold first step but to truly attract students into the professions we need to appreciate the motivating factors in making career choices. Engineering needs to tap into the psyche of the student for theirs are the years of optimism and idealism. Engineering, whatever the sector, needs to promote its criticality to the way we live and explain its social value. What would life be like if that engineering didn’t exist? As Sir Christopher Snowden puts it “ If we don’t communicate well as a community, how can we expect the general public to understand the value of what we add to society?”

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