Appliance Technology

Engineering must be elevated to a true profession. Engineering must follow the lead of other professions such as Law and Medicine. Licensing and legislation which makes it mandatory that Industry not be allowed to pass off non-licensed employees as "Engineers" is the first step to restoring respect to what used to be a true profession. No where is the safety of the general public at more risk than from the products of our industrial sector, such as automobile and aircraft manufacturers. If a medical doctor is negligent the damage is relatively minor when compared to faulty automobile and aircraft design.

I don't blame parents for encouraging their kids to do something other then engineering.

I often times have to keep from dozing off while sitting infront of a computer monitor working with AutoCAD. It's boring.

I know there are many branches of engineering.

Another factor is that while most other college degrees are 4 year degrees, engineering is a 5 year degree. That can sometimes be a deterent.

As an "engineer" with an AS in Electronics and a BS in Plant Science (yes, the green things that grow) I've likely saved more lives as an unlicensed medical electronics engineer than I ever would have if I had stuck to Plant Science, where I started.

Having worked in the medical field for a very long time, I can tell you that engineers do better collectively at saving lives than doctors do individually. In engineering, at least of airplanes and medical products, it is nearly always a team effort with checks and balances. In the medical field Doctors function primarily as individuals who don't like being challenged and rarely admit mistakes due to the huge liability involved.

Folks, doctors are only human and make a lot of mistakes. Hospital staffers also make lots of mistakes as they are also only human, too. All these people learn by making mistakes just as engineers do.

Airplane crashes due to design are few, at least after they get through the test pilot stage and on to carrying people.

Way more folks die in and outside of hospitals because of medical mistakes including poor handwriting that results in wrong medicines and wrong dosages being given than you would ever know. Because of the public's lack of knowledge, it is very easy for a doctor to say something to explain what happened, many times even without telling a flat out lie, but just by not telling the whole truth. Spend enough time in operating rooms and critical care units and you will hear about it as well as see it.

By the way, I believe that requiring licensing and more regulation of engineering would only discourage girls further from going into engineering and likely a few guys to as it would cost more money to get there. I certainly never would have bothered to get a two year degree in electronics if I thought that my career would have been even more limited by licensing requirements.

In the medical field women can become MDs, Dentists and Veterinarians and run their own businesses without having to worry about the glass ceiling and competing within the "old boy network." Until the engineering environment itself changes to accept and encourage more women, until the education system is improved in the USA from elementary through high schools to assist girls (and better assist boys, too), and until fathers do more to encourage their daughters to become engineers, it isn't going to happen.

When is the last time you saw a movie in which the hero who got the girl was an engineer?

Good...everything

Why are children turning away from engineering? It all has to do with media publicity, who gets it, how and why they get it and what they are called in the media. Here's the deal:

Doctors fix people. This is a big deal. We see them lots on TV. Their name includes a word that says what they do: "Doctor"

Lawyers fix the problems between people. They get a lot of TV time too. They don't need a special name because they make tons of money. Like $500/hour.

Police protect people. This is another big deal. Whenever they do something good they are heroes. It only takes a few years of cheap education to be a policeman. The pay and retirement are good. Their work is dangerous which appeals to lots of kids. Police wear uniforms and carry guns.

Firemen are special heroes. They rescue people and put out fires. Their work is always news. Pay and retirement are better than the police. But the work is even more dangerous than police. They drive really neat trucks.

Scientists discover all kinds of good things and even get to invent some neat new stuff. TV is full of stories about them, especially the ones that involve animals. Everyone loves animals and the people who try to help them. Scientists usually have beards or long hair.

Professors and school teachers teach us the things we need to learn so we can grow up and get good jobs. They really know a lot of the answers. They complain that they don't get paid enough.

Farmers grow stuff. They live out in the country where there are pig farms. When you complain about how bad they smell they say things like "That's not a bad smell, son. That's the smell of money"

Soldiers and Marines shoot guns and fight in wars. A lot of them get killed. But they are really tough guys. Some of them fly airplanes and choppers. Soldiers don't get paid much.

Actors live in Hollywood and make movies where they pretend to be someone else. They are really cool and make a lot of money.

Bankers steal money from people and go bankrupt or get taken over by the Feds. Sometimes the government gives them billions of dollars.

Baseball and football players get paid lots of money to play their favorite game. So do basketball players. Dad and his friends like to watch them on TV and cheer and drink beer.

Politicians are old men who go to Washington and do nothing but make speeches on TV, argue with each other and make us pay taxes.

Big companies make all the things we buy. They have presidents who tell everyone what to do. Like Steve Jobs who invented the Iphone and Bill Gates who invented computers. They get very rich.

Engineers drive trains. Sometimes they get in train wrecks and have to have drug tests.

The kids with a Mom or Dad who is an engineer will tell you that they don't really know what they do at work; but they are always late getting home.

Ask an engineer what he or she does at work and most will answer you that they do a lot of stuff but very little is real engineering. Ask them what their career objective is and half will tell you they want to be a manager. The other half will tell you they want to retire.

Ed Weldon

This is F...true!!! you really hit the nail on its head.

Being a technical personnel is not only boring at times (due to lack of contact with sensible humans at work) but it can also be degrading, especially when you're supervised by fools who often have absolutely no idea what is going on meanwhile taking all the reward & glory 4it nd on top of that engineering can be grossly under paid.

Being a "Bean counter" on the other hand can be highly rewarding nd much appreciated so much so, according to a recent US survey, that it'll be one of the most needed few jobs in the near future as the tax law is about to change to ease up on the economy.

In the US, the average "career life" of an engineer is 9 yr. After that, they become managers, salesmen, or something else that is not engineering. Part of the reason, I think, is that companies do not wish to pay for experience. Instead, they start engineers at fairly high salaries, then do not increase them beyond cost of living.

Also, I've seen help wanted ads for Sr. Engineer require 5-7 yr experience. To me, a Sr Engineer should have at least 10 yr in the same industry or 15-20 total. If we hit the highest level of our career in only 5-7 yr (and it takes 4 of those to qualify for a P.E. license), what are we supposed to do after that?

I think that legislation to require professional certification should be passed. Non-certified individuals can be titled Designer. I also think that employers need to realize the contributions engineers (and certain other employees) make are essential to the bottom line even if it cannot be measured by the accountants. In the mean time, I cannot in good faith recommend pursuing an engineering education unless it's a lifetime calling.

Ed Weldon

That was good reading and I promise I will call my self a designer in the future. Not that I have ever called myself an engineer in the past but your post has made it clear that there is a hierarchy and for a good reason most of the time.

(It's just like the officer corps in the military. If you think for one minute they are equal to you, you're genuinely delusional)

Well said Ed, the whole lot. GA from me.

The thing I have found is that most companies expect anyone with title senior engineer or principal to actually be a project and staff manager more than skilled engineers. If you go the route of technical skills, it would take 10 years to become a senior engineer, but if you manage staff and have nearly no technical experience beyond the work done during your in-training period, you will be fast tracked to senior engineer in about 3 years. I have found that this leads to principals that are hired for marketing skills and/or management skills rather than design/technical skills. The requirement for professional lincesure exist, the problem is that the license is for life. Many licensed engineers received their license and have no experience or skills in modern state requirements like Seismic, but continue to practice. The States could obtain more revenue, and cull out those salesmen/marketers/managers who haven't actually practiced engineering design in 25 years, just rubber stamped EITs work, by simply treating a license like DMV does and retest like every 10 years. This would clear out all those rubber stamping managers in these large corporations from fulfilling engineering positions and open an engineering role to actual trained design engineers. Luckily my legacy company of my current corporation is extremely strong in design engineers. However, I have worked for very large three letter acronymed corporation that did have these rubber stamping managers (or even worse regional managers with no engineering education or training) directing EITs to do design work. The only thing they really wanted is very ambiguous, narrow statements of findings and broad limitations (sometimes legal would review documents just for this).

I strongly believe that work should be fun, and endeavor to make it so.I tell this to students when I speak to them, and tell them to pick something for a career that is based on doing things that provide a challenge in areas they enjoy, because they'll be doing it for the next 40 years. A local university is having a robotics olympics where teams of engineering students build robots and put them through their paces for pride, recognition, publicity and $$$. These robots are absolutely AWESOME!!! Promoting things like this to kids at the high school level, or junior high would spark a lot of young interest. Junior high is the age when kids start to form ideas about what they want to do for a living. This is the age to capture kids' interests. A high school robotics club that builds bots to compete against bots from rival schools, and a sharp engineer to mentor the club could be something to do. When I was in high school, we had a JETS club (Junior Engineering & Technical Society) for students with interest in this area. Haven't heard of them lately. Of course, jail time making little rocks out of big ones for fraudulent bank exectutives might take some of the shine off of that vocation!

The power of television is an amazing thing. When I was about 8 years old, back in prehistoric times, the manufacturer of Chesterfield cigarettes had a series of TV ads that showed Civil Engineers at the end of a hard day building dams and bridges lighting up a Chesterfield cigarette. I wasn't much on the smoking part but I did think that building dams and bridges would be pretty cool. I have spent the last 38 years building infrastructure projects in several countries and have enjoyed it immensely.

Today the kids are inundated with TV shows that show well paid lawyers, most aren't, and brilliant forensic technicians, minus smocks, overshoes and hairnets, tramping through crime scenes and getting in shootouts. Why don't we have shows that show scientists searching for HIV cures, engineers building waste water treatment facilities to improve health in third world countries and doctors treating kids in slums in India?

I have just returned to Iraq from a visit to relatives in the States. My daughter is a teacher, inspired by TV character "Kotter", and she invited me to her highschool classroom for a visit. I was stunned! The kids dress like street bums. The difficulty of the text books are at least a year behind what I remember from my highschool days and - - this was the real shocker - - no one is taught how to write in cursive anymore. I just sent a guy packing that is a college graduate from one of the California universities that couldn't write a coherent report as far as sentence structure was concerned and I won't talk about punctuation. I see the problem as a general dumbing down of our school systems, a push to make everyone feel good about their accomplishments even if they aren't real accomplishments, a curriculum developed by lazy, unionized teachers and administrators and last but certainly not least an almost total lack of parental involvement. Unless there is a major upheaval in our educational system - - and soon - - we will become a second rate country within the next two decades. This is the most serious problem facing the US today and everyone is simply whistling past the graveyard.

Lets face it engineering is a labor of love. Most people don't want to know how things work they want to be blissfully ignorant and be taken care of. Yet not one of the professions mentioned excluding attorneys can function without an engineer to make their ideas work. Attorneys could get by without computers but would rather not.

Children don't shun engineering, they are conformed away from it. Why because their teachers and parents can't answer the questions of why and how of inquiring little minds. They learn that asking hard questions make others uncomfortable so to be accepted they quit asking the hard questions and join the crowd.

100 years ago a person could do and make much of the things needed for daily life. If they could not they knew someone who did. Now what percent of the population can drive a nail with a hammer with any proficiency? I would have to say less than one percent.

U V

Now what percent of the population can drive a nail with a hammer with any proficiency? I would have to say less than one percent.

A joke comes to mind:

Two blokes are building a timber house. One of them keeps throwing the odd nail away. The other one asks:

"why do you keep throwing some nails away?"

"because some have the pointy bit at the wrong end mate!"

" but we could have used them on the other side of the house you idiot!"

UV, you are an optimist but that has never hurt nobody, Ky.

"Children don't shun engineering, they are conformed away from it. Why because their teachers and parents can't answer the questions of why and how of inquiring little minds. They learn that asking hard questions make others uncomfortable so to be accepted they quit asking the hard questions and join the crowd."

You know, you too 'hit the nail right on the head'.

People do not like to be inquisitive including their children otherwise they will be regarded as social misfits of today, tomorrow and beyond.

This also explains why people these days cannot do simple basic things in life even around the household - ignorance is the word that comes to mind, what else?

In any case this is not normal because everybody's life is touched by technology so much these days that to shy away from it all should be done gradually. You cannot dump and throw things away otherwise there would be chaos nd some of the dangerous staff made by man has to be treated with care.

Yeah..you are soooo right.
People actually wear their ignorance with pride...
'Oh I don't understand the technical stuff'

Ok, the girls may be allowed to get away with it when it comes to changing a wheel in the pouring rain.... (My daugther has changed wheels, clutches CV joints on her car...with a little catly guidance)
But I work with a guy who will actually call out the AA if he gets a flat tyre .
Del

I was reading your post about kids being conformed away from engineering when I remembers a CEO on a NPR interview who said he can look back at any employees past all the way to grammar school because every little thing a person does now ends up on a computer somewhere.

Kids are held like criminals in schools and rushed from class to class like inmates. The teachers often have few rules to follow besides keep them quite and get them to the buses on time. My kids want me to buy an RV so we can travel around an they can see the world while being home schooled.

My oldest had to endure the movie where two cowboys became lovers in a class instead of how the first rocket were designed or bridges were built.

Point well made. I couldn't agree more. I'm horrified of the consequences of all this, some days. Not looking good at all, Ky.

My oldest had to endure the movie where two cowboys became lovers in a class instead of how the first rocket were designed or bridges were built.

What the lesson should have been is tolerance to others beliefs, not that this is acceptable behavior.

I think the biggest fear our public masters have of home schooling is the thinking process is not stifled.

I've learned enough about law to rewrite the BS I was taught in public school. The problem is I would have to use it in the system long enough to work the bugs out for it to be really usable to everyone. I still show my grown kids the difference between taught law, practiced law and what the law actually is.

Brad

e.g I am sure Davey Crockett or John Quincy Adams had a different perspective of Andrew Jacksons administration than current US history teaches students in high [school] level even.

He is shone in a bad light but nothing is said of how he drove out the foreign banks controlling this country for 60 years. No Federal Reserve just the USA Treasury.

History is written by those in power at the time it is written. Some go to great lengths to erase all history that is not in their favor. The sacking of the Alexandria Library comes to mind.

dadw5 -- With respect to the movie example I don't think any fiction movie rises to the level of being worth two hours of classroom time for any kid's education. In every case such a production represents a sample of one presentation when what the kids really need is information that is representative of a broad spectrum and generally accepted viewpoint of the subject being covered.

I'd vote for a movie on how bridges are built especially small ones. If I had producer talents I could cram an entire high school level course in statics, strength of materials and basic mechanics into something like that and it would be at a level kids could understand. This is information that would not only inspire the potential engineering mind; but would be very useful life information for virtually all the students. Subjects covered would be about things like simple levers and such, what makes things strong and what makes them weak, how and why they break and things like that. And it could be simply a story something like about how someone managed to solve a problem of how to get an old truck across a small stream too deep to ford using simple tools and methods. Now if done well enough to keep the kids' attention it would be worth a lot more than the best Hollywood fiction movie.

We have a system that chooses teachers from a pool of people who wanted to pursue a liberal arts education. This guarantees that there will be only a minority interest in the subjects that interest the kids who will go into the sciences, engineering or technology careers. So of course they are conformed away from engineering.

If your child has an interest in that direction encourage it. The best thing you can do is teach yourself how to give good answers to his/her questions and do it as often as you can regardless of the way the child is educated.

Ed Weldon

hmm, noit sure that would sell considering most high school science teacher dont have sufficient knowledge to discuss such engineering content as statics and dynamincs in bridge design. No teacher wants to present a movie that could raise questions about a level of math and mechanics well above their own understading. It is easier for them to stay wihthin the lower, very limited range of science/math/engineering they have learned and understand in order to maintain the eprception amongst the students of their unfaltering knowledge and thereby maintain some authority in the class room. It would probably work better to home school more children, get the waivers in to a community college for under age student attendance, and send them part time to a community college. Alternately, I guess you could send them to a private school, where they are not limited by some of the State Credentialing requirements and tend to hire people with MS in the actual disciplines they teach rather than a BA in teaching (liberal studies is the actual degree). After all State Cedentialling requirements are based solely in teachers union demands, designed to provide job security, thereby maintaining the higher numbers of mediocre members who can then pay union dues (rather than what they fear would happen if they strived for a higher level of quality leading to maybe a few less members paying dues). In truth it seem corrupt, and maybe that is why the strongest bastion for unions is public service labor work, but unions should not negotiate with governemnt for benefits and pay, as the governemnt has no over-riding concerns about expenditures, rather they are driven by voters opinions, lobbyists funding and public perception.

In my sometimes humble opinion, having taught myself programming over the years (vb,vba), I can only think that math and physics is best taught by being able to write programs. This allows formulas, models, and even graphics to represent the system being studied, while making it fun and interesting to play with the math. It allows easy variation on inputs, which leads to a better understanding of which variables are critical and dynamic; which are static and less critical. There is nothing that can not be represented. Lastly, it makes inherent the correct thinking to produce the correct results. and did I mention, its fun!

Do Loop until Knowledge = Full

. Select Book

. Open Book

. Input (Data)

. Close Book

Next

Chris

I would not necessarily concur, having taken many courses in high and low level programing languages and a very high level of math as a undrgraduate physics major. You must first understand the underlying mathematics, as programming is always an approximation and math has exact solutions in many cases that can not be solved directly by a simple computer program. Having had the math education going into the programming courses, i found that many time the professors would try to show the importance of math in programming by having student develop programs that presented solutions to mathematical problem. Frequently instead of the more accurate and elaborate solution, the students would use a simplified approximation that was accurate in the narrow range the professor would analyze. One course they had us develop a program to find the solution to e with out using the exp function, and the professor indicated as parameters that it should be able to provide a accurate solution to e, e^2 and e^4 as a check. what he found was that many of the programming majors created programs that were simply if then statements of if 1 then 2.718, if 2 then....

Developing programs to solve math problems is a good way to strengthen someones understanding of the math, but first you must have some rudimentary familiarity with the math that is involved. Programs are like homework or any other method of practicing. Plus sometimes a valid property of some mathematical functions are not valid applications of the programming functions.

Quote RCE: "hmm, not sure that would sell considering most high school science teacher don't have sufficient knowledge to discuss such engineering content as statics and dynamics in bridge design."

I'm talking a simple bridge here. No math needed at all. Just common sense mechanics and visual demonstrations. A bunch of tricks for moving and supporting heavy things presented in a visual way with a simple story to engage the viewer and provide continuity.

I'm inspired by a wonderful little book by Jan Adkins titled "Moving Heavy Things", Houghton Miffin, 1980 currently in reprint and available from WoodenBoat Books, Brooklin, ME, USA. ISBN: 0-937822-80-9. ($11.16 from Amazon with 19 hits from other new and used sources from $3.89 used.)

It's full of neat drawings and engaging text. Save for one simple formula on block and tackle combinations and a little balance beam arithmetic, all of which can be set aside for minds that are not ready for that, the book is devoid of mathematics.

Ed Weldon

http://www.tryengineering.org/

chris

The USA is in deep trouble.

Just watch the youtube Video of what is comming down the pike for our kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ehuffingtonpost%2Ecom%2F2009%2F03%2F30%2Fdid%2Dyou%2Dknow%2Dcrazy%2Dfacts%5Fn%5F180663%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

Until today I thought a horror movie would be long and in black and white. (thanks Alfred H). This must have been the shortest I have ever seen and reminds me of a nuclear chain reaction. It looks like we are moving to fast for our own good and Orwellian predictions are done and over with.

Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. Poor Jesus, what have we done!

Poor kids, what can they do?

I can only hope, Ky.

My favourite author, Zecharia Sitchin, tells of the goddess Isis, visiting the god Enki, getting him intoxicated, and more than a little 'interested', and the asking him for the ME. We only know that the ME's were some sort of knowledge/learning system that allowed them to relearn what their ancient civilization had developed, on their home planet of Anu. After that, she was able to do many things.. fly, shoot energy weapons, and bring her husband back to life...

So, its been done before.

This is a bit scary, but given our population growth, which is really the scariest thing going, we Must have this knowledge explosion, just to survive.

The only justification in the world that I can find for the continuing warmongering, is that the super rich and powerful are trying to keep the world population below the asymptotic point of criticality. (re: Club of Rome, et al) After that, we will literally kill and eat ourselves, including our young, or commit suicide. So technological advancement is essential to avoid that nasty probability. We must get off planet. We must control our population. We must educate ourselves. We must master our reptilian agression and fear. I read that at the turn of the 20th century, the global population was 3 billion.. now it is over 6 billion.. how many people will the planet support do you think?

Chris

It helps us understand what Bill Gates was trying to do with the H-1B Visa's. He was trying to High jack the best and brightest from all around the world.

I would have to disagree, given that the caps used to be 3x as much. This is much more about the superpowermongers trying to crush the united states back to a 3rd world level, so they can create their global fascist government. I'm think William is just highlighting the obvious stupidity of the cap.

Chris.

I did not know that I thought Gates was trying to raise the caps on H1-B Visas to a higher level.

yes he was.. but a quick google shows that they were 195,000 before 9/11.. so I think the complaint was that 65000 was too low.

Good to hear from you Chris

There is one word for it: critical mass. If it goes beyond a certain point, and is not controlled, it will blow up in our faces. I hope we are not beyond that "sweet spot" yet.

I have been advised by CR4 admin (a while back) and was duly reprimanded for making my thoughts about politics public on an engineering site. I promised not to in the future and have taken it in with a grain of salt. My contempt for politics is just not palatable, even in/at the best of times.

I don't know who pressed the "Report" button back then but the thread was dead.

I was kicked out of School for the same reasons (contempt) and what I wanted to complain about back then is now common knowledge and my critique has changed the way schools are operated in a little but important way. I would possibly be offered a fellow ship at some Uni for my train of thought today.

Well, 1968 (Germany) was a hard time but we got through. Some didn't but they disqualified them selves by going radical and were beaten to pulp and worse.

I remember when the Club of Rome was founded back then and we had high hopes. It all went the bean counter's way from there on in. Had I only stayed on the barricades for longer!

I'm out of here, Ky.

So how come the kids don't want to be engineers? Just maybe they are smarter than we give them credit for. I'm going to stir up some animosity here and stab some sacred cows. But please hear me out.

My point is why are we so anxious to train more engineers that we may not need? Just how many engineers do we really need in America? We waste much of the engineering talent we have.

Here's my answer:

1. Companies like to hire graduate engineers because the degree shows that they are intelligent, able to work hard against an objective, tend to think logically, understand technology at the basic principle level and are needed for a pool of employees that are to be groomed for promotion into management.

2. Engineers are trained in universities to understand the finer points of physics, chemistry, etc., learn the mathematical techniques needed to solve complex engineering problems and prepare for graduate level study.

3. There is a disconnect here. Too many engineers don't go to graduate school and never use the math on the job. Clear understanding of basic principles is of value to most technologically oriented companies. But their need for people to do mathematical calculations has plummeted in recent decades with the availability of computer tools and the defacto standardization of best engineering practices for solution of most engineering problems. So what we see is graduate engineers doing less professional level work and more clerical, drafting and technician level work while their managers review them to try and find future business leaders?

Seems to me that we ought to be able to save a lot of money by educating and sorting the pool of workers companies really need a lot better without wasting university educational resources on training that is not needed or used.

Here's how:
1. Get rid of the idea that people can be anything they want to be if they have the opportunity and are willing to work hard enough at it. That's a bunch of revisionist nonsense. We ought to be able to identify the talents, aptitude and motivations development of every student on a yearly basis and tailor his/her next year's education appropriately. We actually used to do that in school before differentiation of student paths became politically incorrect.

2. This would be difficult and costly to do with current educational methods and resources (money). Teachers working in classrooms need to go away and be replaced by computers starting in the 9th grade and going at 80% of instruction at least up through the sophomore year of college and maybe at a lesser level through the first year of graduate school.

K through 8 would still go with teachers and classrooms and smaller class sizes with much of the 8th grade devoted to transition to computer based education. The kids would get the close attention of a real teacher during the years they need it the most.

3. The students will benefit because their education can be much better tailored to their individual situations. The computerized records of their education will give a much better basis for employers to make hiring decisions and will produce students that are much more ready to perform on the job. Teachers, especially the ones who prefer to teach more mature students won't like this. Their preferred jobs will go away. There will be lots of work building the computer based course structure but this will taper off as best methods are put into practice. So fewer teachers will be needed to maintain the curricula. Tenure will be a more difficult achievement. Businesses can have more influence on educating kids to meet their actual needs since curricula can be tailored for small numbers of students.

4. This can be the foundation of the changes we make in our current costly and inefficient education system we currently complain about. A revolution in a system that can only be fixed with a major revolution. And we'll no longer worry about attracting kids to engineering as a career because we will have identified the ones who really want to and can be engineers in secondary school grades and redirected all the potential non-professional technical workers into the right kind of education they need for their future. And our society should be able to make much more efficient use of our tax dollars for education.

5. Yup. The teachers unions won't like this.

Ed Weldon

Come on Ed. I'm a poet and I know that you need to know what you are doing and therefore engineering and a scientific training is good training for even a poet. I shook hands with Rod Serling, and had dinner with Gene Rodenberry. My Hero is Grant. William James is up there as an American Philosopher. Thank God I was a Boy Scout. Them Merit Badge little books are helpful with the real life. On the way, for this day, I took my feet to the road. With my knife I kept my life and, well, was glad, I had more than a rock.

Transcendian -- I have some trouble understanding you. It is my shortcoming; not yours. I'll try to respond; but I may be off target...

I believe everyone should get some engineering and scientific training. Just as we need training in use of language and a number of other subject areas that are a necessary part of our lives. This is what education should be about. Learning what you need to know to live.

Unfortunately education has been taken hostage by the notion that measuring the student for someone else's convenience is more important than his/her learning anything. We pack the process with a bunch of standardized curricula most of which is pretty useless except to insure that that the test results between students are directly comparable (i.e. minimize the variables).

So you go to school take the assigned courses, get a diploma and a GPA. This is a "ticket" future living along with a "seat assignment". This is pretty much all your future employers care about because they know that a majority of the course work you went through is irrelevant and largely soon forgotten.

This is such a waste. Education should be about teaching us what we need to know. It should be individually tailored to fit our personal capabilities and needs (one of which is to make a living). The process of measuring the student should be much more a means for guiding the student's education than a convenient tool for sorting human resources. And it should be virtually unnoticed by the student.

About the curricula. Nothing should be sacred. Everything needs to be rethought in the context of modern life. Keeping useless subjects in the curriculum because they are the only things that tenured staff can teach should be an impeachable offense.

Mathematics. I submit that learning the efficacy of mathematical methods is far more important than being educated and proficient in their execution. For that we have computers and calculators. Oh yes, some engineers, scientists (and economists?) need to "do the math" to study at the graduate level, solve advanced problems, build computer tools or critically examine technical writings. But the rest of us?

And please don't sing the song about how we'll get along when the power goes out. For most of us, and that includes a lot of technical types, some elementary algebra, trig, statistics and graphical methods is all we need to live and work.

Ed Weldon

Ed,

I am giving you a GA for your explanation.

I live in rural America and all the problems you have listed are problems I have personally seen in our system.

Let me clarify that I do not teach nor am I an employee of the school system but merely a parent of 3 student that graduated from the system. I was very active with my children when they were in school and helped the teachers when I was able, with the excursions that the boys went on. I went on all there music trips and assisted the band director with all the halftime shows.

What I saw, with regards to your comments, was that there is a great lack of caring amongst parents and teachers. One would think that the teachers should have a greater intelligence level than the students they are teaching. However there were many time that my children came home after having been berated by their teachers because they argued the answers on a test. Many times I had to personally tell the teachers that my children were indeed correct and give them the proof to back it up.

Now much as I hate to say it, although the teachers attitude was a bit off, it was not the fault generally of the teacher. (although sometimes it was) It was the fault of the way the curriculum was set up. Turns out that most of the books that have been written as well as the answers that were in the teachers copies, were so out dated that some of the theories, and issues had changed. That coupled with the teachers requiring you to find your information on the internet (which hardly matches itself most of the time) created issues where student each had correct answers although they were different in the information they portrayed.

There are a lot of teacher in rural America that quite frankly should not be teaching. The only reason they have a job is because they know somebody that works at the school. I mean they even give learning credits to cheer-leading now. Seriously!

Although sports and cheer-leading teach team building spirit and attitudes, should they really be given educational merit towards a diploma?

So yes teachers teach the only things they know and students are required to learn things they may never have a use for, but I really thing the major problem in the lack of caring that is passed on by both the teachers and the parents. Although not all teachers nor parents are this way.

Are you describing education or training? this plan assumes an aptitude for engineering means a desire for engineering but what about personal development? what about non-engineering abilities? would they be squished? there is more to education than efficiency - but it doesn't matter because at the end of the day the children of the elite would still get a helping hand to the top of the pile.

"Current engineers find their own children shun engineering"

Well if father only makes an appearance in the weekend, with sleep deprivation, and a sour mood due to problems on several projects, no wonder they try to go the idol's route

Not in America, even in our China, more and more parents wish their children to become an artist rather than an ehgineer. although engineer and secienist still has higher position in traditional chinese mind.

In one word. this can make more money withoiut work hard !

if you would see university entrenc examination in china , wow hundred of thouisands of student enter art exam class. very significant. its terrible.

countless stars rush on tv screen or film. haha.

if I would have no job, I would open a class to teach these youngers painting, digital art and studio works.

anyone out there would like to join us?

So there are a few of reasons for parents and teachers not to influence children in the direction of science and engineering:

1) the pay is very poor for the vast amount of work and education required to achieve professional standing when compared to other much easier careers like attorneys, dental hygienest, xray technician, actor, online stripper, fireman, prison guards. FYI, doctors are seeing an issue of declining income amongst those disciplines that save live (not amongst those like plastic surgery however).

2) Because of the influence of business people in getting control over the financial aspects of engineering on a large scale, and their laziness, engineering has become boring as more of the business aspects are handed down to the technical people in an attempt to reduce the work load on the business managers and receive better quality of analysis.

3) Engineering may be undervalued when comparing public perception to the real value to society. This may be due to the fact that the modern society has come to beliee that anything they think they need should be free and anything they want (but do not need) should cost a lot. Also part of this derives from the idea that if something doesn't go wrong people become comfortable and lose longterm sight of the benefits and value. As bridges, tunnels, multi-story building start failing more often people will start to look for a cause, and we all know the public policy, financial interests and politicians can not be to blame. So a few engineers who were willing to do work for penneys to win a job and tried to stay on budget to keep management happy (by cutting corners) will be sent to jail, and the public will demand a greater level of care ( at least for as long as the publics attention span which is currently about 3 years, keep in mind the minnesota fiasco and current public awareness).

4) Educators not promoting engineering and the basic thought process. Well keep in mind that in the US teachers below the College teaching level do not specialize in their fields, they either have a specialty degree in the field like a BA degree in chemistry in a college that has BS degrees for the actual chemist, or mor ecommonly they are educated to teach with no special knowledge in liberal studies at a level of skill in math and science below even a art major. Many high school math teachers understand the current PC theory on teaching techniques, but not any calculus. So how can you ever expect them to promote the idea of using math to solve anything, when they themselves barely understand it. (I am of the belief you should hire teachers from the best and brightest you can get in the field of study and train them to teach, not hire people trained to teach with limited skills in the field they are to teach).

5) a lack of public awareness does not promote the industry. Well it would be hard to promote engineering as it tends to be a long tedious process where the discussions vastly exceed the understanding of even much of the educated public. Who really wants to have to take a course in calculus to watch tv. At least with science they can pretend to understand, and the basic concepts used in tv sound exciting, but they dont have to understand anything about the science just that science is dangerous, scientists are out to kill or control people, and a scientifically challenged FBI agent with the aid of a single helpful biochemist will save them in the end because she believed deeply in the freedom and equality of all men, and endeavored to do save them from science.

I am an engineer, I have a daughter. If she tries to become an engineer, I will disown her. This is a miserable soul stealing profession. You get nothing but problems. You get miserable pay and miserable benefits. You get the "opportunity" to work 24/7 for pay barely adequate to live on. I am even having to take out loans to send my daughter to school. Business majors make all the money, that is what she will be studying.

Well some business majors make good money, but some do not (though some go into a business major just so they can go to college and party without having to learn anything hoping to meet the right man to marry after college). That is really the advantage, if she plans to work for real after graduation, then a business major really does earn more money, and she can graduate sooner with less effort and cost in college. Plus business education lends itself to work in the more financially lucrative industries like mismanaging financial institutions, or even intellectual properties law (for actors and such, non-technical), contracts law, and corporate law (if she wants a JD after graduation). However, she would probably earn even more as a prison guard for the State of California without having to go to college. Plus from corporate managements perspective, they could outsource all the engineering to India, getting cheaper labor and limit product liabilities (the public would buy into the whole argument that a US corporation can be held responsible for the failings of a Indian subconsultant, after all how were they to know, they aren't engineers, this is why they hired the indians or some other foreign labor source). Then they just need someone with less education to manage the money flow to the subconsultants. Maybe they get a product below the current US standards, but the government no longer prosecutes corporate executives for such product failings (and only rarely prosecutes engineers even when people die). I hear the Chinese government does, however, and I believe in the future we will see the corporate executives in China will behave more responsibly or not work there.

Hmm, this always confounds me when people identify someone as brilliant and then state examples of a willingness to utilized/apply reduced ethical standards and blind aggression (without adequate review or forethought). In a similar vein are these economist and executives for financial institution who just 4 years were considered brilliant for their willingness to take risks (with other people money), break rules, take ethical positions that would have gotten others imprisoned (obviously now we know they did not adequately consider the risk and take proper precautions). However, they did not do anything ingenious, they took what was learned at ENRON and built on that, and ENRON took what they learned about how far was too far from the likes of Waste Mgmt and built on that. I am not sure that pushing ethical boundaries and the limits at which people will allow you to violate them and direct their lives is consistent with brilliance. This is part of the issue identified above, but spread across the whole of society. Some people just aren't brilliant, it is not that we are all brilliant just in different ways and thus we must expand the term brilliance to include everyones skill sets.

That's a good one, Ed

The National Science Foundation overstated the need for engineers in the 80's, and there was a glut. Engineering is not very rewarding. I've practiced in industry and now in consulting for 30 years, and, given the choice again, I'd look for something else.

Thousands highly skilled in math will spend thousands of hours to work formulas to discover the risk reward in changes to a product. Like the Ford Pinto and the gas tank. How many had to die before it became rewarding for Ford to make changes.

Today the same risk rewards in the Financial Sectors is having about the same effect on the public. If those same people with great math skills would try to apply their skills to problems outside of risk and reward maybe Enineering would gain a better footing in our society.

Reach out to those laid off from Wall Street that have those math skills. Entice them to use their skills in applied math areas.

Actually, those guys in wall street tend to have fairly limited math skills. Higher math is somewhat frowned on in those investment type business sectors, beyond rudimetary levels, addition, simple growth, long division, etc.. Risk rewards is the same thing, mostly just addition of values assigned, such as a vaklue for a human life or injury. It isn't the math that is the problem, since it is so simple, it is that the insurance agencies evaluate the costs based on previous losses due to law suits and the frequency of recurrence. the wall street guys make investment decisions more frequently based on some inside knowledge, knowledge of the players, face time interpretations of various players feedback and body language, etc.. Thus it is a place to breed the very good liars who are very skilled at reading people and have minimal moral limitations, as they are the ones who will progress in making money. You know sociopaths.

The guys I know work for Insurance Companys and teach higher level math classes at the local colleges. One has and engineering degree but says his income is 20 times what he made as an Engineer.

I am sure that there are soomne guys who are educated in mathematics at what to most engineers is higher level math (bearing in mind this is a relative term adn it may not mean the same thing to a physicist, whereas my admin assistant was just talking about calculus being an extremely advanced level of math that she would be surprised if her children even had any need to learn). I could see them teaching math even to some how use their mental aptitude, because the industry doesn't particularly depend on higher math, more so statistics using basic math derivations and specific assumptions. Since they deal directly with money, I would not for a minute be surprised that they earn more than a engineer. Sometime go through the large engineering corporations and you would be surprised to find out how much the accounts people and market/sales makes relative to the engineers. I would be surpirsed if they were making 20 times as much as an engineer, maybe 2 or 3 times. I know from grad school that professors earn less than engineers for their work as a professor.

Must be the stock options and bonuses

My sons have invited several friends from school to come and stay at the farm this summer and help us with different projects. Five of them this year had their parents call and say they could stay with us. One project is to design and build a Japanesse style bridge over the fish pond and install toliet in the pond storage shed with drain lines and hand built septic tank. Then replace the deck of the pontoon boat with tounge and groove alum and design new walls for the boat. Layout, fence and cross fence a new pasture. Then build a deck by the greenhouses for Grandma to relax on when she visit. She likes to shout out orders on how to plant and grow every seed, plant and tree God put on this earth. Got to love her.

Every year they bring a couple of kids to stay for the summer. I often wornder if the cheap labor is worth it because my freezers are running low by the time school starts in August. Maybe I should start a summer camp. lol

It is fun to see the kids actually learn to apply the math they have learned in school to achive and end result. I give them notebooks and ask each of them to write down each step they do on a project, step by step including the math before they layout anything to be cut. We check the math togeather before making any cuts on materails. They learn to speak truth to power this way too I think and I know they learn planning along with processes, because in the beginning they always leave the planning part out of their notebooks the first day. I make a habit of sitting down and planning the next days work after dinner. Sometime we build a fire down by the pond for the planning session.

I ask the local government is they could put togeather a summer camp progam at the old boy scouts camp and let the kids actually rebuilt the camp with supervision. No word yet.