Engineers a dying breed?

"In closing i just want to say I hope I have not offended anyone or descredited them in any way as that was not my intent. But just give us older guys a chance we may not be formally educated but we have some good Practical experience to draw on."

No offense taken, I just wanted to present the other side of the coin. And I agree, employers often do not give "us older guys a chance" (I am 50), degree or no degree, when they think, "I can pay a younger guy less to do the same job, and even if he is willing to work for less, he will just move on as soon as he finds a better paying job" or even that a younger person will automatically put career first before family matters and necessarily have less health problems that result in higher health insurance costs, lost time on job or sick days.

Often the opposite is true, as younger people, having just finished school are not interested in settling down and might be out late the night before or even hungover the next day. Sickness can strike anyone at any age, and older people are often more immune to contagious diseases, having built up more immunities over the years than younger people.

Younger people are often more brash and rash in decision making and less apt to think things through as thoroughly before acting. They are also less likely to seek advice from colleagues and potential mentors, not having yet learned that what they don't know could fill volumes, nor having learned humility yet by making those big mistakes or seeing others of their own ilk make them and thinking, oh, wow, that could have been me!

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt! (Anyone want to buy a slightly used, circa 1980's IMTS/SME Show T-shirt, size XL? <grin> )

Dear all can some body recollect the degrees held by Mr.Thomas Edison,HeneryFord ,can they be called as engineers and any one remember their names.

crm

Hi guys sorry I have been away in France on urgent business but here is another thought is it not about time we fronted an engineer for President?

"is it not about time we fronted an engineer for President?"

Whom did you have in mind?

If history is any example, it may not be such a great idea. The only degreed engineer to become President was Herbert Hoover, and I think we know what happened on his watch! Jimmy Carter claimed to be an Engineer, and his degree in Naval Science probably included the requisite math and physics, and he was involved in the Navy's nuclear program (taking some graduate courses), but I am not sure if that made him more of an engineer or a physicist. He was probably most successful as a peanut farmer!

George Washington was a surveyor, so some claim him as an engineer as well. I believe he did direct the building of a few forts so he might qualify in that regard. Some say Jefferson was an engineer as well, as he designed several buildings and had several inventions and improvements on other inventions to his credit, but did that make him an engineer, or an architect/inventor/industrial designer?

Some list I saw even claimed Abe Lincoln as an engineer, but as he read and practiced law as a young man before venturing into politics, I am not sure how he could have done any engineering.

Still, an engineer may be a good choice, especially if you consider that most of the alternatives are LAWYERS!

Ye! There's a bit of a problem in the selection or candidate but engineers usually come up with an answer. But we do need a non political animal if at all possible one who has had enough of politics. Maybe the current Admiral Royal Navy Engineering. Anyone any other suggestions? Please no software engineers.

Time to stir the pot he he..

All this talk about engineers. In my experience , no engineer is worth his pay. It takes a technologist to keep an engineer honest. It is the technologist that corrects all the engineers mistakes. It is the technologist that has real practical experience.

You have an evil streak.

In a small company like the ones I'm used to working for, the engineers get their hands dirty & if it don't work they have to fix it themselves.

Who me

All right!...Good practice, If you can find engineers willing to get there hands dirty.

Are they really able to fix there own mistakes??? I guess you got the few exceptional engineers that all the others claim to be.

Perhaps my views are skewed by always having worked for small companies, in the one large company I worked for I only ever saw prototypes of the finished equipment. In the small company environment, if the parts don't work the first thing the assembly people say is 'come out here & show me how this is meant to go'. For specials & one-offs, a lot of the time I would be expected to do part of the assembly myself.

In larger companies, The engineers are "Project Managers" who spend there time managing contracts, money, and projects. They go to lots of meetings, play a lot of golf and show up at the 'milestones.' Any problems fall under risk management that will effect the total cost of the project. The fix is simply an additional task to contract out.

Same here and I am the one that does all the dirty work.

And I Mean ALL the dirty work.

But then again I'm not an engineer

We already know the engineers try to take all the credit.....

"All this talk about engineers. In my experience , no engineer is worth his pay. It takes a technologist to keep an engineer honest. It is the technologist that corrects all the engineers mistakes. It is the technologist that has real practical experience."

Where I work, the only "technologists" we have sit in their nice clean room, babysitting several network servers. The most they ever get their hands dirty is the dust they might pick up if they have to dip into their floppy disk file, since most everything is either on CD-ROM of Hard Drives by now.

We engineers go out into the shop, handle "real" product, mostly aluminum, iron and steel machined parts and castings/forgings, etc. Do we get out hands dirty? You bet! I am sure the "technologists" have no idea of the difference between a "serrated press fit metric drill jig bushing" and a hole in the ground!

Another company I worked for, my first job out of college actually, did have employees they called Process Engineering Technologists. I was being hired as a Process Engineer. But the week before I was to start, the HR Manager called me up to say, we are sorry, but after reviewing your application (he had already interviewed me several times) we do not find your degree on our list of "Engineering Degrees". So the job we CAN offer you is Process Engineering Technologist."

"What's the difference?" I asked. The HR guy replied,"Oh, same work, same everything, except title and about 10% lower salary, but we have a great correspondence course where you can train to be an Engineer in only a few years."

"Do me a favor, please. Call the Corporate Engineering department and tell them that my degree program has ABET-accreditation as an engineering degree and see what they say." He called back the next day to confirm the job offer as Process Engineer at full salary.

True Story! The sad thing is this was a company known world wide for innovation and forward thinking, but I guess that did not extend to their HR department!

You mean one of these?

or one of these?

Wow, Techno, you know how to Google. Amazing! What is your next trick? Turn it off, turn it back on, and see if it works?

OK, but on the second part I was thinking more like one of these:

Hey STL ever heard of this place.

Has your name all over it

OK ya got me on that one but unfortunately none of them are me...... including the horse. LOL

By the way the reason I came across that was I was curious if the STL was your degree or just Init's.

Course if it is your degree just exactly what does it stand for???

"By the way the reason I came across that was I was curious if the STL was your degree or just Init's."

STL is on the cap of my favorite baseball team!

STL is the ICAO designation for my nearest International Airport (like JFK, LAX, etc.)

STLtoday is my local e-newspaper.

STL is the common abbreviation for our metro area, like NYC.

Since I am an Engineer and I live here, that makes me an STL Engineer!

Nice design. Is it yours?

Unfortunately it does not meet building code!

I have been following this thread with great interest. I am for all practical purposes a non degree engineer, having worked in manufacturing and design development all my working life.

I currently work for a naval architect design firm as their "electrical designer" being careful to not claim "engineering status". We have three degreed Naval architects and several College trained CAD operators. However I can design circles around these guys and have over th epast year bene asked to "unofficially" monitor and correct their designs when I see a problem area. At this point I have been given responsibility for supevising all "systems" and have had to redesign nearly all of them.

I forgot to mention that I'm 59 and got my schooling long before computers or CAD was even imagined. I still have my picket slide rule, but have forgotten how to use it. <smile>

On more than one occasion I have been confronted with degreed engineers from large corporations, intent on shooting down my design or the designs of my company.

People have often asked me where they could get the same education in marine engineering design. Hard to say! I draw on 40 years of experience in R&D, electronics design lab, several manufacturing plants, and as a Q&A manager plus sundry self employment stints as a consultant and free lance designer and trouble shooter of marine application problems.

The company relies on myself and one other guy who is another non-degreed Naval Architect to keep the young guys on track and out of trouble. That other guy is 69. But we are the only guys with practical experience in ships and boats instead of just book learning. So at least some companies do appreciate older workers and the worth of their practical experience.

Best regards to all!

Slide rules are still the king when it comes to gear ratios. Just set the ratio and look at the gears available to see if you can match the ratio.

Also there is nothing makes you consider the design of every piece of machinery than having had to crawled around in the bilges to work on things that were designed for a shore application.

Yeh there are lots of plusses and minusses in this but if you have been in a situation of travelling the world and change jobs frequently you need the paper to keep your credibility no matter how good you are.

What can you except?in a countery like india i was surprised when i found out The stream Electrical engineering it self is not there Now in univercites across the State of Karnataka every one is jumping on to bandvagan Computer engineering and software engineering.and No takers eithers for mechenical and civel engineering! I dont know about other states in India.

crm

No takers eithers for mechenical and civel engineering!

No, no. Of course, not! From now on all mechanical and structural artifacts will simply be programmed from "hard light" holograms! Next time you want a bridge, simply enter the GPS co-ordinates of its beginning and end, and the Holographic Construction Company will simply "replicate" one into existance.

Rrrrriiiiiiigggghhhttttt!

Or else, I have this bridge in Brooklyn I can sell dirt cheap! Remember the old stone London Bridge? It was moved to Arizona. Maybe India would like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, or possibly China? Good way to get some of those Greenbacks coming back to the good old USA, let's simply sell all our historical edifices! Maybe France would like to buy back the Statue of Liberty (well we can't sell it to China, that would be too ironic!) I believe there is already a house on Pennsylvania Avenue that is being sold to the highest bidder in 2008! <grin>

Of course the Capitol in Washington, DC must be bought one Senator and one Congressman at a time, sort of like a "timeshare" condo!

Hey aint stream of consciousness great william faulkner would be proud.

ROFL

Heard it said once that engineers should never be in management. I know one not too far from here when he got the chance shot the company through the roof in profit. Generally though project managers etc are the ones that get the money an' the stress (sometimes) an' the glory (most times) but heard one nutcase say save us from engineers an' he couldn't do a design review even if his name was Noddy.