Nobody Knows an Engineer

There are a few leaders out there who are trying to fix this problem with our kids (future) not knowing, respecting and appreciating the engineering field (and maintenance too).

One that come to mind is Joel Leonard (The "Maintenance Evangelist"). You can find him on twitter @SkillTV Contact him to see how you can help with the cause and educate our young people about maintenance and engineering. Learn more about Joel at http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=33483732

All leading engineers are in good positions and very well paid and placed .

Maybe in enlightened countries like India, but not here. We hear lots about teachers and nurses being low paid - but their starting salaries are higher than engineers' starting salaries. There's lots of emotional blackmail in the media about how important they are to society - and yes they are important - but you never hear anything like that about engineers in the media or from the Government.

In fact, just recently, the Government refused the request to have a UK Chief Engineer, on a par with the Cheif Medical Officer and Chief Scientist.

Bah humbug.

The Professional Institutions and their members are doing lots of good work in schools at all ages to get children involved and excited about engineering.

By way of serendipity, this week's Point of View on BBC Radio 4 was about the dearth of science and engineering training in the UK.

It's available on Listen Again for 5 weeks, and the text is permanently archived on the site.

As Lisa Jardine says, the lack of understanding in the Government and other influential bodies means no change will happen in the near future.

Very well said! But your obervation is true of India. Another aspect which is remarkable in India is the number of ladies who are opting for engineering as profession.There are very few ladies in engineering field in Western Europe or US.Possibly parents in West tend to groom their girls more towards glamour side of life.

Dear Krishnan.ng,

Nice of meeting you in CR4.Thank you for the G.A. As had been observed, engineers hold technical and moral responsibility as care takers and skeleton frame basis of all active lives of social functioning. There deeds are expected to be on constant quality improvement and based on futuristic sustainability.

In INDIA more girls opt for Engineering ,just because of Computer field entry. Most girls prefer safe teaching jobs.More than real interests and ambitions of girls ,the parenthood is always bothered about settled married and secured life that the female engineers are posed with limitation and mobility as regard to their profession and working environment.

In developed countries women take up all possible challenging careers on par with men and their views and outlooks are quite advanced.

Though I have mentioned the self motivated journey of engineers in performing their duties[KARMA] with ethical and moral aspects more in dominance- the views of other posts from English Rose, Wrenchtwriter and guest seems to be a matter of concern. My points about this lacunae aspects for engineers are the following.

Mass production and over competition of industries and products, over production and sudden market failure cycles.

Fast changing trends, technology, products and consumer habits

Inter and multidisciplinary complexities and large chain of humans involvement and so on.

Independent functioning of an engineer like a medical surgeon or specialist may not fit for engineers and there lies the limitation.

If engineers take up the challenge of changing the world from the miseries of pollution,energy, power, material sustainability,consumerism, irrigation and better resources deployment,cleaner and environmentally sound technologies- think of the immense scope left on engineers.

LET ENGINEERS BE MOTIVATED AND WORK WITH COMMITTMENT AS RESPONSIBLE LEADERS OF THEIR ROLE. you MAKE A DIFFERENT MEANING IN LIFE AND SOCIETY.KEEP MARCHING TO THE GENEROUS GOALS LAID ON YOU FOLKS.

My compliments for a very comprehensive and sensible posting. You have very nicely put forth what essentially is a Western perspective. Talking of glamorous jobs, the statical chances of getting notably successful is remote. The psychological wreck of huge majority of ladies who failed to make grade is unfortunately not visible, at least in India. Further being a very conservative society even the very successful glamorous ones will be looked down upon and the fate of the failed need hardly be mentioned!

Of the additional family responsibility womanhood prefers day time and routine like jobs. The trend is there every where.

I would like to add to one fact that women are relatively sincere than men in performance of duties and bear ethics and they are more workaholic than men.

As a privileged gender, who are the very basis of life and society we can afford to allot priority choices for them.

"engineering companies are now run by accountants, not engineers"

Be accountant or engineer or any position for that matter, in companies, are to run profitably among competitions. That is what ERP – resource planning is all about, account (or use?) the resource effectively.

In most companies engineers as seens as a necessary "evil" and not a valuable resource. Projects go to hell because companies are not willing to pay the proper salaries for their engineers but have absolutely no problem in bringing in consultants at a huge cost to assist with the restructuring of departments - basically hiring consultants to tell management what they should already know.

An Engineer is from a different planet. Thus no accountant or other soft skill, over paid person will understand them.

It is also true that companies would rather hire a consultant at a higher cost than trusting their own engineers.

That is also the reason why I work on a consultancy basis lately.

Holding someone in high esteem is based on

1) knowing what they do as an individual

2) alignment of the viewers individual values to that of the person's values

3) affirmation (reinforcement) that the correct decision was made

Some people think engineers drive trains.

Most people don't know what individual engineers do, because we are behind the scenes, working in groups, or in corporations. I know Don Keck of Corning Glass was a lead engineer in developing the first optical fiber, but I bet you've never heard of him.

Scientists and engineers are often seem as a-moral (if not immoral) mercinaries that do the bidding of even more a-moral management and government. Witness New Orleans and the Army Corps of Engineers. Was Einstein evil because he helped develop the atomic bomb, etc. If an engineer creates something on his own, he in an entrepreneur, not an engineer. Henry Ford, for instance. DaVinci was an engineer, but he's seen as an artist and inventor first.

It's hard to align your values with someone who is unknown and does not seem to have values. Engineering is seen as what we do, not what we are, and values do not seem to be a big part of any endeavor in business or government.

Never heard of him, as predicted.

In the UK, Intel are running a series of adverts showing their engineers and inventors as heroes...with fellow workers chasing them for autographs etc. I thought it was quite clever as a way to get the public to think about the fact that all the gizmos and gadgets they use were invented by somebody. My mum didn't get the point and thought they were stupid, even when I explained. If someone who does knows what engineers do doesn't get it, what hope for anyone else...?

<...If someone who does knows what engineers do doesn't get it, what hope for anyone else...?...>

We're too good. Because we have regularly produced miracles for the last 40 years, it simply has become expected.

But the issue of glamorizing the profession is of no concern to me. I believe engineers are born with the natural curiosity, the desire to know how things work, the drive to solve difficult puzzles, and satisfaction of a job well-done. It isn't for the fame and fortune. It's a shame that Bill Gates and others have been so successful. It sets unreasonable standards for the technical professions. (Bill Gates may have started technical, but quickly became a businessman/executive.)

No amount of Hollywood glamorizing the engineering profession will interest one of my daughters. She wants to write. That is her passion. Dare I say, those with the "knack" will gravitate towards the engineering fields. The pay is in most cases more than adequate. Of course, we'd all love to get paid more money to do what we like to do anyways, but the marketplace realities are what they are. I can comfortably raise my family with four kids in a nice, safe suburban neighborhood with decent to good schools. We live a house that is nicer and bigger than the house I was raised in (my father was an process/industrial engineer with Chas. T. Main in Boston). My wife chooses not to work and we can afford to do that. Sure, I don't live in a brick-faced McMansion with fancy landscaping in a development with some hooty-tooty name and an entrance that looks like a country club driveway and hob-nob with the attorneys, bankers, executives and business owners and that's OK. I would not trade the life I have for theirs.

I have the luxury of time. When I leave the office, I leave the office. I don't have to travel excessively. I have an older brother who is a VP for a multinational corporation. He spends more than 50% of his life on business travel away from his home. He loves his job but it has its costs. I'm certain he will be able to retire at an earlier age than I will, but at what cost?

We can afford to travel with our none-too-fancy travel trailer (nice but not opulent). We bought a nice but used '92 Wellcraft bow-rider a few years ago for water skiing, wake boarding, tubing and other lake and protected waters fun. We bought used Honda CRF's off Ebay for everyone and we go trail riding in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. We watch how we spend our money, economize in some areas (I'm a DIY'er to save $$$$) and spend our money on the things that matter most to us. I can't complain.

I have always exposed my children to the engineering fields, tried to foster a sense of wonder in the every-day mundane taken-for-granted world. For instance, I would disassemble a cereal box at the table during breakfast and ask my kids, how do they make a machine that takes this piece of flat cardboard, die-punch the shapes, roll the creases, fold and glue the box together? And do it 100 times a second !! I exposed them to engineering wonders large and small. The Museum of Science in Boston is still one of their favorite destinations when we travel to New England to visit family.

However, my oldest daughter (nurturing personality) joined the Army Reserve and is training to be a nurse. My son, a senior in H.S. (who has the knack but not the motivation) is content to slither through school barely graduating but he is an incredibly skilled mechanic, astute and able to troubleshoot complex systems, and will do very well working with his hands. Another daughter wants to teach English and write books. The youngest daughter loves birds and decided (on her own) that the best way for her to help birds is to protect the environment by becoming an environmental engineer. None of my children seem to be the least bit interested in electrical engineering and electronics. And it isn't for lack of exposure or enthusiasm on my part. But that's OK. I'm good with that because they are headed to professions and occupations that interest THEM.

If you don't get respect at work, it's time for another job. My employer values engineers because they know that without engineers the company ceases to exist. However, that doesn't mean they are going to pay a quarter mil a year. They can't afford to. If your company doesn't respect you (or your profession) then they don't need you. Accept the fact and move on. As long as you stay, they can only assume you are satisfied with the situation.

By staying, you hurt yourself and those around you. When people quit, the corporate culture will either 1) realize they really needed you and were very sorry they didn't treat you better or 2) realize they didn't need you anyways so it's better you moved.

My oldest brother is a senior plant engineer and his company dumped on him, expected him to work all the lousy shutdown periods (holidays), odd shifts, travel frequently to different locations and did it for lousy pay (because he didn't have a B.S. degree even though he is an absolute whiz with factory automation in a paper mill environment). He finally got fed up and put in his resignation because no one would listen to his salary and work/life issues and didn't get any respect from middle to upper level management. The very next day two vice presidents from the home office flew to his location and begged him to stay with the company because at the prospect of his departure, they finally understood his worth to the corporation. They fixed his salary issue immediately with a huge raise, and made provisions for him to travel in a family friendly manner. They now actually listen to what he is saying and understand the extent of his contribution to the operations of the corporation. He is much happier now.

I love engineering. It's what I want to do and they pay me to do it. What's not to like?

A kid will decide their passion and should be encouraged to follow their own passion by their parents. Might be they have Super Hero tendencies (Work as an Engineer, Nurse, Teacher, Green Peace, etc. more for the enjoyment, bettering the world, helping others).

Or they might want to be a movie star (work for the fame and money).

Or they may want be a leader (business, politics, etc.)

Or they might ...

The bottom line, mentioned by another post is, society should be promoting the Engineering Fields like the do teaching and healthcare professions. It has to be society as a whole. Like writers of children's books being inspire to write about the Engineer as well as the nurse, fireman, train conductor, etc.

The main difference in promotion of the field is that enginers tend to not be just labor but also dual field the positions of lower management for the non-exempt labor, so they do not have the responsibility. Nurses are non-exempt labor and do not have the responsibility for the patients health (The responsibility is actually the agency they work for or the Doctor's).Teachers can be either exempt or non-exempt, depending on the position/contract, but there is really no responsibility there for an end product or quantifiable performance (and any attempts to quantify performance in teaching children will meet with a huge amount of cooks in the kitchen from the variety of powerful teachers unions). Also the unions representing them deals mostly with wage/benefits fights against public agencies that don't really care much about the cost of labor, but rather the public awareness and perception of the taxes allocated to pay for such labor (sometimes they do notice, though infrequently, such as the last recall election in California was in part driven by the excessively high pay the governor agreed to pay unionized prison guards). Most engineers are privatized, and pay is measured in profitability and marketability of services. They have to deal with direct marketing to the clients for new projects, managing resources (e.g. non-exempt labor such as technicians and draftsmen) allocated to projects, conducting the engineering work components, managing the budgets & schedules, and all while undercutting competitors and providing a better quality product. I think teachers might be perceived much differently if we held each individual teachers advancement and pay scale against a quantifiable comprehensive examination of the quality of education received by students in their classes. Also, as far as heroes go, I am not sure Nurses are quite the heroes, but more of the heroes sidekicks, if you really consider it. I mean we talk about how astute we think nurses are in comparison to doctors and such, but when it really comes down to the serious medicine/surgery you really would not be satisfied to hear that a nurse would be conducting your life threatening surgery b/c someone felt she was competent to do it instead of a qualified doctor. Nurses really are more like batman's butler Alfred (not even really like Robin, b/c Robin always had to be right in the fight and take all the blows, and Alfred knew all the equipment, provided indirect support, took care of general tasks and maintained the equipment/living arrangements/etc.). Nurses don't share the liability with the Doctors. The other day i heard a cop from a local community complaining about how nurses are the real brains and best know how to take care of people when they come in to the hospital, of course he has had a number of surgeries including voluntary surgeries and he has always gone to a Doctor for such activities and his big complaints against Doctors was that they don't spend enough of their time devoted to his bedside (which is why we have so many nurses to relieve doctors to do more important medical work). BTW many Registered Nurses earn more than general practioner or surgical doctors, excluding plastic surgeons and orthopedist, and don't have the subordinate labor to pay wages, the billing overhead, or the medical liability insurance costs.