Why Engineering?

By Dr. Manuel Cereijo.

With the closing of the school year in June 2010, and with so many graduating students from high schools, many young women and men, and their parents, wonder what career they should select to become professionals that not only could make a contribution to society, but to themselves in life.

For all those students who during high school like mathematics and science, my strong recommendation would be to study engineering. Why?  An engineer’s work is directed toward an application, something that is useful, convenient, or valuable to society. In choosing to study engineering, you would have also chosen to enter a profession. Engineering is predominantly intellectual and varied.

To find a role for yourself in the engineering profession, you must identify first an engineering discipline and engineering function, which corresponds to your interests and personality. The term engineering discipline refers to the particular types of engineering. The term engineering function refers to the role played by an engineer within his or her discipline.

There are several classic or standard engineering disciplines: electrical, mechanical, civil, environmental, industrial, chemical, computer, and biomedical. Of course, there are several other disciplines. Among the engineering functions, we have: production, construction, testing, design, research, development, operations, consulting, management, technical sales, and education.

We live in a technological age, and if our society is to flourish, many of our leaders should be engineers, and many of our engineers should be leaders. The work of engineers is central to much that is of supreme importance in our society. The work of engineers is a key element in our hopes for a better life-for ourselves and for all of humanity.

Engineers find in their creative work much genuine satisfaction-what I call existential pleasures-making them in some ways the most fortunate people in the world.

Two powerful forces have come together in synergetic union: engineers yearning for professional eminence, and at the same time, society calling for leaders who can cope with technological change. A wholesome respect for honors can be a force for great good in a society. Of course, we must draw a fine line between petty vanity and legitimate pride.

The young persons getting into engineering will get a preparation to contribute to engineering practice by learning from professional engineering assignments. They will also receive an education to prepare them for graduate study in engineering, as well as a base for lifelong learning and professional development in support of evolving career objectives.   Engineering education is a challenge. It is becoming more    interdisciplinary, and knowledge is growing quickly. Education is   not synonymous with training. Things change too rapidly to train  students effectively. We have to deal with fundamentals that will be useful to students for a long time. Training should be at the corporate or government workplace.

At the same time, engineering education must be interesting enough  to keep students motivated and to attract others to the field. We need to provide a good basis for lifelong learning — more of a  challenge as things get increasingly complex.

The public perception of engineering is one hurdle. Many young people think of engineers as nerdy and not very social. This is not true. We need to convey the excitement and creativ  and the professional and financial potential of engineering to the  public.

Engineers can contribute by improving productivity, which makes for  a robust economy. Whether it is in manufacturing, development of new  technologies, computing improvements or in nanotechnology,   engineering can create more productivity per worker.

Engineers play a vital role in national defense. Bioterrorism is on  everyone’s mind. Thwarting it depends on engineering technologies.  Issues of detection depend on engineered devices such as sensors. Sustainable energy is another area in which engineering has a large role to play. There are political and economic aspects, of course, but technology has to be one of the important elements in determining how we live on this planet without making it a lot worse.

In health, engineering helps develop devices and prosthetics. It conducts research into how we see, touch, hear and breathe, how we protect ourselves from injury, how we perform surgery better.

At the molecular level, the genomics explosion involves numerous engineering issues, such as techniques for molecular imaging,  reliable testing with small samples and how to analyze a huge amount of data from molecular biology.

Engineering is crucial, too, to our civil infrastructure: modern water treatment, transportation, and telecommunication systems and construction techniques. Engineers create by understanding multidisciplinary systems.

In an era of man-made brainpower industries capital/labor ratios cease to be meaningful variables. Skills and engineering knowledge, human capital, are created by the same investment funds that create physical capital. Today knowledge and engineering now stand alone as the only source of comparative advantage.

Besides all the interesting aspects of engineering mentioned above, there are two important ones to consider.

First, and very important, the starting salary for the 2009 graduates is the highest for a four to five year education beyond high school. Second, there is a tremendous growth in job opportunities in engineering in the United States.

Manuel Cereijo is an electrical and computer engineering professor who holds patents in manufacturing, telecommunications and control systems. He lectures at the University of Miami

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