Aging Engineers

Not sure.....

Aging Engineers

I resemble that remark.

"Worse, the continuing trend for fewer and fewer students to show an interest in science and engineering, is making the pool of new graduates from which companies can draw new engineers even shallower."

...I wonder if this trend is specific to the US.

I'm a little biased here as they "tossed" my entire department to make the bottom line look better. A lot of skills were lost but they didn't care sooo...I guess I don't really care either!

I am very sure, based on personal experience that even the young engineers age.

But then "Outsourcing" is not really a loss of engineers if we do not outsource them to the graveyards.

So what exactly are we saying here?

Last I looked there was still engineering studies in the universities.

Yes, but, these young and upcoming engineers NEED mentoring at the side of seasoned pro's as they enter the real world. I have met some that are so cockey it's scary and couldn't engineer their way out of a paper bag. Some (and I stress SOME) enter the field think they have already earned the stripes that only experience can bring and demand respect from everyone that they don't deserve. No I'm not and engineer but I prefer dealing with pro's that don't live "in theory" as I work in reality. So for you "OLD GUYS" (some are cantankerous) just please stick around till they get their footing.

Thanks

Wish I'd said that.

Not saying that the old guard is the best, just saying they are tempered (some to the point of inflexibility) to the discipline of engineering. yes new "outside the box" ideas are great but what good are they iff'n you cant make 'em work or fix 'em when they break!

My eldest is a structural engineer at Honda Jet and my statement to him was if I ever caught him designing something that the guys in the field would cuss him for I'd put my foot in his a$$.

Speaking as one of the guys in the field!

Thanks

Credit where credit is due. One does not have to be an engineer to have a good idea. Some of my best ideas got "shelved" when the shop floor got cleaned, had to come up with an immediate fix and it ended up as a chalk "drawing" on the floor, something that my guys could understand and implement immediately.

How will this effect the future of engineering?

Well ESDU propose paying them to provide the analysis and answers.

Yea right, more likely they will just ask their questions on CR4 for free in the hope we 'aging' Engineers will give them a quick answer.

;)

Surprisingly this may actually work as once the old Engineers are replaced by the new the new can just look at the CR4 archived history and use that to answer many of the questions asked in the future. Robots and flying cars will still need suitably sized busbars and cables too!

;)

At one point in my Program Management phase of my career, I was assigned as the "mentor/assistant" to a younger PM that would be in charge of the excecution phase of a project that I had initiated/built...I'm not as good as others at the day-to-day stuff but can do the initial phases very well. My boss recognized this and hired the new PM to be my direct supervisor. He and I had a sit-down discussion when he started and he was so pleased that he had me to show him around the company. I acted as his chief of staff and continued to managed the people that had built the system, leaving him free to learn the ropes of the project. When he needed advise on how to deal with certain groups or people, both inside the company and in the Government, he would ask me to be his point man initially until he was comfortable dealing with them directly. The only reason I left the group was I was getting bored having worked on the same project for several years. In hind sight, if I had stayed I'd still be doing the same things today. There is value in "knowing where all the bones are buried" ...but I'm happy retired.

The lack of competent engineers today is painfully obvious by looking at some of the questions posted here.

"Engineers" today want to do their "work" at a keyboard. My background is mechanical/materials and you need to be able to see things in your mind, not on a screen. And clean hands? How can you know how things work if you've never taken one apart.

My kid's a computer engineer. He couldn't change a spark plug if he had to. But, he supports fighting Marines in the field from the USA, so he has some worth.

American industry has become a slave to Wall Street and is beginning to look like they have lost interest in producing quality products. It's more about cheap, cheap cheap.

Welcome to the world economy, where Walmart now dictates the price.