Definition of an Engineer 26

[Ashereng]

I recently brought my little ones to my office, to see where I work.

They have only seen me "colour" my drawing, and working on my computer at home, and seem to think that engineering consists of:
1) drinking a lot of coffee (yes, I am cutting back)
2) colouring (I do a lot of back checking and review)
3) surfing the web (I do a lot of design and sizing on my computer)

However, this descripton aside, how would you describe/define engineering to a group of Grade 10s? I don't mean the specific type of engineers, like a piping engineer works on a project to bring oil from Alaska to Texas, but more generic

What does an "engineer" do?

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[emanager]

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?"
The man below says: "Yes, you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."

You must be an engineer" says the balloonist.

"I am" replies the man. "How did you know."

"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."

The man below says "you must be in management."

"I am" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

 

[cksh]

I have been trying to define my position for the past year. Currently my job title is design engineer. Now I do design things and I have a BSME but am a truly an engineer? I have been designing plastic parts for the past year and my company requires a engineering degree. But 95% of my time is spent creating CAD models and spitting out drawings. other then my inexperience with plastic design (which i wouldn't of learned in school anyways) I believe my technical school degrees more than qualified me to be a drafter. At my last job I was called an Engineer and I had never done so much CAD in my life! Even when my job title was cad operator! I had been a drafter for a good portion of my career so I kind of laugh when they call me an engineer.

In the past two years i have not had to rely on any of the math or science i took in school.(except for maybe 1%). I feel i have wasted my 7 years at night school and plenty of cash to be a CAD operator for the rest of my days. I am now very cautious when someone calls me and says they have a great engineering opportunity for me!

So I wonder...what the heck am I? Bored out of my mind thats for sure.

 

[SnTMan]

These days if you're doing a lot drafting, you KNOW you're an engineer. I can't imagine what kind of menial work the drafters must be doing.

Regards,

Mike

 

[aardvarkdw]

The drafters are doing the same stuff the engineers are except that they have to go back and fix the drafting work that the engineers did. :-D

 

[SnTMan]

aardvarkdw, well, yeah, one reason I went into engineering was that I could see I wasn't going to make it as a draftsman.

Mike

 

[KENAT]

Move to England and you probably wouldn't have to worry about it (I assume you're in the US).

 

[SnTMan]

Uh, yeah, how did you know?

 

[KENAT]

Sorry Snt, I was actually guessing at cksh nationality, should have made it clearer. But I would have guessed the same for you.

My point was back in the UK there didn't seem to be quite the same level of distinction/prejudice between Drafters/Engineers/Designers etc (but my experience was a little limited). So cksh you could call yourself an engineer without worrying too much if you really were one.

I'm not saying it was better, or worse, just different.

If you're getting paid as an Engineer and are happy then no problem, if you're bored though then I guess you could either ask for some responsibility/tasks/position that would interest you or look around.

I'd love to be using CAD rather than project managing and writing specs, requirements, test plans, procedures etc. Wanna swap?

From an English dictionary

Compact Oxford English Dictionary

engineer

• noun 1 a person qualified in engineering. 2 a person who maintains or controls an engine or machine. 3 a person who skillfully originates something.

• verb 1 design and build. 2 contrive to bring about.

It’s only the online compact version, I don’t have shelf space for the full version!

 

[Tunalover]

Unless a company has a policy of promoting non-degreed folks, I can't see how a Draftsman/Designer can be fairly compared with a degreed Engineer. I also don't see why hiring managers ask for that degree when one is not really needed. Why hire Mario Andretti to drive a dump truck?

I graduated from a major university with a BSME in 1984. I was given very little practical knowledge to take to the workplace (since then went to grad school for MSME). When I got into the workplace as a naive newgrad, it became clear that the engineer was expected to be able to the job of the draftsman, designer, engineer, buyer, technician,... So I quickly learned to do layout design and drafting and learned it quite well.

Since then the draftsmen have dissappeared. There are still designers (and I' glad there are!) but it seems that there is always so much work that the engineers are doing almost full-time layout design, sometimes more than the designers (who are doing drawings). Now I earn close to $90k US and am doing drawings of brackets! Where's the logic? Where's the economy? While I'm drawing brackets my analytical skills are wasting away. The employers want their cake and they want to eat it to! Don't they realize that it makes no sense to have experienced, well-educated engineers on the tube full-time doing layouts and drawings?






Tunalover

 

[mechman7]

Engineers design, build, and test concepts in an effort to create or improve a product.

Lots of people have said design and build... But testing is the third leg of the stool in the creation process. (How do you know your design or improvement has worked???)

KENAT,
From you earlier post, I think you are associating "build" to closely to manufacturing. "Build" could simply mean prototype, turn a concept on paper into a tangible product.

 

[z633]

Tool.

 

[HgTX]

Not all engineers get to test. Civil structures generally are built to a code that's (in part) based on someone else's tests. Why? Because Calvin & Hobbes cartoons notwithstanding, we don't get to test our structures to failure and then rebuild them, so instead we stick to our conservative codes.

I got into a big hoo-hah over that one with a firm that typically designs for another field. They don't much care about standard code details because they just build what they want and test it. They just couldn't understand that we just don't have that option with a bridge. In theory, we could test individual details, but someone would have to include the money for such testing in the contract, and that means convincing the state or municipality that the epense for such testing is justified rather than simply following the code, etc., etc.

Hg


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[Supercar1]

I heard that an ancient test procedure for the bridge is to have the bridge engineer stand under it, while the first carriages are crossing it.

 

[KENAT]

Mechman,

Maybe it's based on my experience. At my last place in aerospace/defence in the UK I didn’t build prototypes.

We had an experimental work shop who did that. We’d give them drawings (or at a push sketches & verbal instructions) and they’d produce the prototype. Not to say I didn’t spend a lot of time there helping them answering questions and clarifying things but I couldn’t claim to have built them myself. The one time I got more hands on was when it was something that the customer (usually RAF) had to assemble or something which interfaced to existing equipment., in which case I would help do the ‘trial fit’.

Maybe something like:

An engineer carries out all or part of the process of designing, overseeing manufacture, testing, in service/through life support and disposal of a product.

However having re-read that sentence it kind of sucks so perhaps someone smarter than I could come up with a more eloquent way of stating the same.

Ken

 

[shavelength]

sorry I am late:

An engineer: this person will produce the most with the least amount of efford and recieve the most amount of stars in exactly the correct time whilst enjoying a nice cup of coffee and deligating his troops.

Or in other words: (The image of the duck racing in the pond.) The secret of live is to keep cool and calm on top but to paddle like crazy underneath.

 

[oldfieldguy]

Maybe some of our more language-enabled contribuotors can help, but isn't the German spelling of engineer "Ingeneur"? Like more in keeping with "ingenuity"?

That brings us to a fork in the road: Engineers: People who live off their "ingenuity", versus "engineers", people who cause engines and machines to run, like that locomotive engineer of the facilities engineer who maintains and operates the sytems of a large building.

old field guy

 

[Supercar1]

"Deutsch Ingenieur", that's all German I can read in Google.

 

[FOETS]

Engineer (en je 'nir) n. An individual who is able to produce, with prolific abandon, streams of incomprehensible formulae based upon extremely vague assumptions and theories based on debatable figures acquired from inconclusive tests and incomplete experiments, carried out with instruments of problematic accuracy by persons of doubtful reliability and rather dubious mentality with the particular anticipation of disconcerting and annoying everyone outside of their own profession. [source unknown]

Not a defintion but

You know when you're an engineer when...

... you make 4 sets of drawings (with seven revisions) before making a bird bath.

... you find yourself at the airport on your vacation studying the baggage handling equipment.

... everyone else on the Alaskan cruise is on deck peering at the scenery and you are still on a personal tour of the engine room.





FOETS
"social drinker with a golfing problem"

 

[vpl]

so what's wrong with taking tours of the engine room?

Patricia Lougheed

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[Ashereng]

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?