In this short article we will try to uncover many general but often unknown or mystified content of the term engineering. We are going to discuss what engineers do, how engineers are categorised by their specialization and also we will try to give you a good guide on what to do should you wish to start an engineering career.
Engineering is probably one of a most misunderstood term in the 21th century. This is mainly due to the fact that many of us swiftly associate it with a male dominated profession that involves dirty overalls, hammers, spanners and dusty boiler rooms. Engineering also can be imagined within fenced construction site where foul-mouth labourers are struggling to move enormous steel beam whilst monstrous machines exhaling dangerous fumes.
But engineering is far more than that. Engineering is a strictly controlled discipline and also a traditional professional occupation. Engineers mainly use their technical and scientific knowledge to use and transform the Earth’s resources in order to design and build various devices, machines buildings and structures. Without our engineers work we would not have roads, cars, airplanes, electricity, drinking water, the list is endless.
Engineers may do various things depending on their discipline of specialization
- Aerospace or Aeronautical Engineers design, operate and construct helicopters, airplanes, spacecrafts, high speed trains and high performance over-water transports.
- Agricultural engineers are responsible for food production processes and various biological system design and operation such as composting.
- Architectural engineers’ work focus on safe design and build of various buildings and structures.
- Chemical engineers design and operate various chemical and biochemical processes commonly in the chemical, pharmaceutical and water industry.
- Civil engineers work with control infrastructures of the natural environment. They build levees, dams, roads, rails and water systems. More about civil engineering can be found here.
- Computer and software engineers design and produce software applications.
- Electrical engineers design, manufacture and operate electrical products and systems.
- Environmental engineers design and operate systems that control pollution in water, air or on land.
- Industrial engineers design, install, evaluate and operate complex systems that are involved in various production or service activity.
- Materials engineers work with material production and applications.
- Mechanical engineers are design and machinery and several other physical devices.
- Mining engineers are responsible for design and safe operation of mining activities.
- Nuclear engineers are concerned with aspects of safe use of nuclear fission.
- System engineers design and manage large-scale and complex engineering systems.
Engineers as other major profession have their own professional titles. In general if someone who practices engineering is called engineer yet there are several licenses and formal designations. The highest level of engineer is the Professional Engineer (PE). Professional engineers are likely to be employed in the top management of global or national engineering firms or be their own boss by managing their own small or medium engineering company.
Engineers usually enjoy very high job security along with a modest salary and several other benefits such as good health insurance scheme, national and international travel opportunities and straightforward career prospects. They can work outdoors as site engineers or be office based as design or consulting engineers. Also they employment are unlikely to be affected by global financial turmoil as their work is related to basic needs hence engineers are most unlikely to be redundant.
Should anyone be interested to change his/her career and become an engineer the possibilities for it are endless regardless of your age, gender race and even your nationality. The engineering sector is always in need of hard working individuals as their work stream is not only stable but ever increasing just to say the rising sea level caused by global warming, which needs immediate attention. To explore the possibilities of an engineering career further we recommend you to have a look on a more focused career and employment advice website such as Wetfeet.
To become employed within the engineering sector you do not necessary need to have a graduate degree. Many openings such as specialized engineering technicians are requiring you to have a certificate or diploma with engineering or science background. From there employers are very likely to help you to get the neccesary degree if you show a genuine interest in your work. And you still don’t need to panic if you don’t have any related certificate at all as these days are very easy to get enrolled to an engineer course on a part time or distance learning basis hence you still can keep your current job while you study. To find out the available engineering courses in your area the best way is to go to the National Center for Educational Statistics website as they maintain an excellent and authentical course search facility called College Navigator.
Engineering is a numerical based field, no one argue with that. Unfortunately many of us was made to believe that just do not have ability towards numerical sciences on which all engineering field is based upon and it was already proven throughout primary and secondary education. Well, you could be just too harsh to yourself or perhaps you have never had a decent math or science teacher or – just like me when I was in my teens – was not interest at all in the school and the studies. Math and science tend to be over-mystified by those who can learn them easier than the others. That is a very bad custom as these subjects can be learns by everyone; it is nothing but matter of time and practice. You practice more and you will learn and understand more, simple as that!
I believe that many elements of the basics of engineering is already known by you from your secondary education. If you would like to know what are those basic skills that are commonly used by engineers visit eFunda where several, fundamental engineering knowledge and references are presented. And if you still don’t believe your ability in numerical sciences still nothing to worry about. Just get your exam done and get the qualification. Believe me or not 50-55% of professional engineers do not need to use more sophisticated mathematical operation than basic arithmetic to carry out their daily routine. In this century the engineering profession is very detailed thus you most likely to focus on very small section of the whole process meaning that you do not need to know everything!
Should you wish to read and learn more about engineers and engineering in general we highly recommend you to visit ENGINEERING.COM. Here you can find many well detailed information about engineering and related topics.
No related posts.