[Students say] What is Engineering?

Here’s the thing.

We’ve heard about “What is Engineering” from friends and our Creators of Tomorrow. But really, what do students think of engineering or innovation?

After all our friends aren’t going to switch careers and the Creators of Tomorrow are engineers. So that leaves the future – students of today.

While we’re waiting for your say, perhaps this little study by an engineering lecturer, Preman Rajalingam of Republic Polytechnic, could shed some light on what students think of engineering.

He got students to take photos and write up on what engineering meant to them. Then he categorised each photo according to an engineering outcome (what results from engineering) and their write ups to engineering processes (what goes into engineering).

I’m skipping over the report’s details (read it below or at Scrib) and presenting the conclusions…

Engineering outcomes are:

• Mostly associated with creating tools, buildings, and vehicles.
• Least associated with creating blueprints, or influencing society and economy.

Engineering processes consists:

• Mostly of constructing physical things, enhancing human life, and mastering subjects related to engineering.
• Somewhat of creative endeavours (like arts or music), improvements upon existing technology, understanding how things work, and contributing new things.
• Least on teamwork, solving problems, and having fun.

What’s it all mean?

Students think that engineers are predominantly involved with making things, improving our lives, but they’d have to master Maths and Science to do so. And that engineering consists mostly of things that we see around us.

What do you think? Tell us in the comments.

 Src: Preman Rajalingam (Srcib)

Read the full paper:  I study Engineering and I’ve got Problems” at Scrib.

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