Excellent Article about Engineering

[sciguy125]

Originally Posted by JoeXIII'007

Great article! And just remember, it's an engineer's world. Without us, everyone is powerless, literally.

I'm sure that you meant that in jest, but I'd like to comment on it anyway because I think it's relevant to the discussion.

You have to realize that the profession(s) you chose to hold in high regard depend on your priorities. Each has good and bad points.

Doctors help the sick. They ease suffering. But, of course, they are making humanity weaker. Every time someone is saved and has a kid, they are passing on their weak genes.

Engineers develop the technology to make our world work. Pollution seems to be becoming a serious problem. We have also developed a dependence on technology such that we can no longer function without it. Think of what would happen if the internet suddenly stopped working tomorrow.

Lawyers keep order. They ensure that only the guilty are punished. But what does that say about our legal system if we need lawyers to defend us? And why do they charge so much?

The garbage collectors keep our homes and cities clean. If they don't do their job, we'd be up to our knees in rubbish. But wouldn't their time be better spent trying to figure out how to produce less garbage in the first place? If we didn't have them, we'd be forced to do so.

Each group would also find a way to function without the others. Engineers could develop the technology to replace doctors and eliminate garbage. The legal system would be so efficent that lawyers aren't needed. Doctors would make due with basic tools, relying on their heads instead. With everybody happily healthy, there'd be no need for a complex legal system.

The original claim is that we need to produce more engineers in order to keep up with our global neighbors. But with some sort of global economy looming (take the Euro for instance), our energy might be better spent specializing. I think that all the countries in the world will inevitably join together rather than work as individual cells. If everybody was doing everything, we'd get nowhere.

Let's take the US in it's current state as an example. Silicon Valley specializes in electronics. The high-tech industry lives here. Many midwest states have a lot of farming. Texas has a lot of oil. If you don't know how to vote, you live in Florida. With the high-tech industry centralized, everyone knows where to go if they want to do something relating to it. It also makes it easier for companies to communicate with each other. And, by doing only one thing, you can dedicate all your energy to doing it well. If all the Flordians started dispursing themselves, we'd have hanging chads all over the country. Our electoral system would fall appart. We'd still be trying to figure out if Gore won.

Just because China seems to have specialized in engineering doesn't mean that we have to also. At the moment, we seem to have become the world's police force.

[tiffany34990]

My calc class discussed this issue a bit last year but not just about kids going into engineering here in the US. But more and more in other countries go for their doctorate. That's why they seem to be doing better than us on some levels. Most of our parents just finished with a BA and didn't go on with their masters or doctorate. It is just the way our country is set up sets up how we are living and wanting to live. Like previous people have said, doctors and lawyers have always been like the kids choice to grow up and be. Now reality sets in and questions us if we can do that or not. I know many people that wanted to be doctors or lawyers but they won't go into that field. I personally wanted to become a doctor since I was younger but my mind has changed. Engineering does allow you to have many opportunities it depends on where you want go in life. I'm headed toward medical research now but I may take a spin and use my artist talents and engineering information and do something with that. But unlike most artists, engineering isn't the field you consider. Graphic designs, animation and that sort of stuff most head in first. But we have to be glad where we live. In many countries you test out when you are younger for your future. Thank goodness we have the ability to make up our minds and choose a path that we feel we are comfortable in taking. America may never be number one when it comes to education but just remember be glad to live here. As my HS math teacher always reminded us every day "Someone in another country will exchange places with you in a heartbeat."

So everyone good luck in the journey of your life. Everyone has a purpose in life. Find your calling and I think America succeeds with giving us all opportunities. And of course thanks to programs like FIRST for giving us this such great opportunity, without it many of us wouldn't have considered science, math or technology fields.

[Adam Y.]

At the same time, we also hear about the most trivial, including but not limited to the marriage and break up of the popular, steroid use in sports, etc.

Ummm... Of all the things to say that is trivial steroid use has to be the one that is farthest from any list I can think of. It's the tip of a major problem of people that think that they can get away with taking these drugs for any performance enhancement. The scariest of which is people taking Ritalin just to get through college.

[nehalita]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

Ummm... Of all the things to say that is trivial steroid use has to be the one that is farthest from any list I can think of. It's the tip of a major problem of people that think that they can get away with taking these drugs for any performance enhancement. The scariest of which is people taking Ritalin just to get through college.

Of course, but the problem is most of the reports we hear about this are from the "stars." In fact, a lot of the news we end up hearing about is about the "stars." Perhaps the media should cover issues like these should be addressed on a more holistic level.

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by Adam Y.

Ummm... Of all the things to say that is trivial steroid use has to be the one that is farthest from any list I can think of. It's the tip of a major problem of people that think that they can get away with taking these drugs for any performance enhancement. The scariest of which is people taking Ritalin just to get through college.

Originally Posted by nehalita

Of course, but the problem is most of the reports we hear about this are from the "stars." In fact, a lot of the news we end up hearing about is about the "stars." Perhaps the media should cover issues like these should be addressed on a more holistic level.

That's precisely my point. The media should get it down to a local level, maybe even down to the guy next door who has actually committed an unproffessional, unreasonable act. In other words, down to a point where the people would really care. Too many times the media tries to fetch millions of viewer's/listener's attention using a popular icon of any sort as an attention getter. If it works, they're lucky, for those that pay attention usually only have interests related to the person in question.

Another 2 cents from Joe.

[nehalita]

I found another article in the Herald today (yes again!). I have spoken to the author and he has allowed me to post it:

"Leaders should promote study of engineering
--by Andres Oppenheimer
One of the reasons Asia has become the factory of the world is that, while Asian universities are producing record numbers of engineers, their counterparts in much of the rest of the world -- including the United States -- are graduating lawyers, accountants and psychologists.

Before I tell you my grand theory about why Asians are more geared toward engineering, let's look at the figures.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) says that, in sheer volume, China is the world's leading producer of engineers: It graduates around 220,000 a year. By comparison, the United States graduates about 60,000 a year, South Korea 57,000, Mexico 24,000, Brazil 18,000, Colombia 11,000, Chile 4,000 and Argentina 3,000.

HOW THEY RANK

A separate report by the Engineering Trends consulting firm shows that, measured on a per-capita basis, South Korea produces the most engineers annually, followed by Taiwan and Japan. By comparison, Colombia ranks 19th, Chile 23rd, Mexico 24th, the United States 25th, China 30th, Brazil 35th and Argentina 37th.

Regardless how we count it -- and there is some skepticism about some of the data, since not all countries have the same standards for giving out engineering degrees -- there is no dispute that Asian countries are far ahead in the game.

'Falling behind is dangerous, because it affects countries' manufacturing capabilities,'' says Engineering Trends founder Richard Heckel. ``Manufacturing is an ever-changing scene. If you don't innovate, you don't compete.''

Development experts say that, if a country wants to be a manufacturing powerhouse, it needs people who can produce existing goods in more efficient ways, and people who can constantly come up with new products. This means they need engineers on both sides of the production cycle.

BY THE NUMBERS

In the United States, the number of college engineering students is stagnant: It's higher than it was in 1980, when it stood at about 58,000, but lower than it was at its 1986 peak, when it reached 77,000, according to NSF estimates.

In Latin America, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM, produces about 620 psychology graduates a year, but only 40 graduates in petroleum engineering, according to its statistical yearbook. Argentina's education minister, Daniel Filmus, told me with horror in an interview earlier this year that, upon taking his job, he discovered that his country graduated only three textile engineers a year. Argentina has sinced created private sector-supported scholarships for engineering studies.

''We are trying to steer students toward sciences and engineering,'' Filmus said. ``Now, all of the education ministry's scholarships go to needy students who want to study hard sciences or engineering.''

WHAT'S THE SECRET?

What are Asian countries doing to get so many young people to study engineering? In addition to having a market demand for engineers and in many cases a culture that venerates scientists and engineers nearly as much as rock stars, there is a top-to-bottom government encouragement, experts say.

''In many Asian countries, the highest levels of government talk about how important science and engineering are to achieve economic growth,'' says Alan Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. ``Here, the scientific community has often to convince policy makers that science is critical to economic growth.''

After talking with Leshner, it dawned on me that whereas China's President Hu Jintao has a degree in hydraulics engineering, in this part of the world we have almost everything but engineers in office.

The United States has a president who got a B.A. degree in history, and a master's in business administration. In Latin America, most presidents are lawyers (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala), economists (Honduras, Peru, Panama), business administrators (Mexico), clinical physicians (Costa Rica, Ecuador), psychiatrists (Costa Rica), sports commentators (El Salvador) or army officers (Venezuela).

ONE BAD APPLE

Even though there are exceptions to the rule -- Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez graduated from military school with an engineering degree and he has been a disastrous ruler -- perhaps it's time to elect engineers as presidents. Or, even better, we should press the lawyers, economists, psychiatrists and others who are in power now to use their positions to steer more young people into science and engineering."