A newspaper article I came across this week made the claim that the reason so few middle/high school students want to go into engineering is because they're really not sure what engineers do. I have to admit that the article might be right. Hell, I was in college for engineering, and still had no idea what engineers were doing. It was only after I became one that it sort of started coming together.
So that's why I'm writing this nice article about what I, an engineer, do. Obviously I'm not every engineer. There are probably hundreds of different engineering degrees you can get, and each of those has another hundred job options you can use it for. My degree is in electronics engineering technology and I do avionics systems integration for small business jets... but that's irrelevant to this article! I work in a cubicle but there are engineers who work outside, I don't travel but there are engineers who travel all the time. But at least getting my story out there will give you an idea of what one engineer does, which is better than nothing.
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So I'm going to try to avoid talking about airplanes too much. I have a sneaking suspicion that the aircraft industry is just like all the other ones, with a little more certification work. So here goes:
<b>Ten things that an engineer does in an eight hour day</b>
2 hours - make block diagrams
It doesn't matter if we're doing actual engineering or describing things we've already engineered, seriously, we make a lot of block diagrams. The wire diagrams I do are basically just block diagrams. I get a nice manual about a new box we're installing, and it tells me things like, "Pin 22 should be connected to an input telling us the airplane is in the air" and I figure out how to present that in a nice way on a drawing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, but it does take someone with some spacial orientation concepts to lay it out nicely (because that one box probably has 60 wires, and ten go to the AHRS unit, and 6 go to the display, and one goes to power, etc.). Sure, I have to know little things... like, use thicker wire for high power, and use sheilded wire with audio so it doesn't sound bad, but again, not rocket science. I do love it though. It's fun for me to think about how systems can be laid out on paper, it's fun on engineering drawings, it's fun on reports, you name it... as far back as I can remember I've loved making block diagrams, the more complicated the better. It's like a logic puzzle that only gets bigger as you add more stuff.
2 hours - write reports
After we do little wire diagrams, we use MS word or Visio to do bigger, clearer, system diagrams to put in reports, and then we write about our systems. We list industry standards and government requirements and describe how our system complies. We write about tests we ran, with charts and graphs showing data that happened when one of those blocks on our diagram was a measurement or recording instrument. We write nice help guides for marketing to sell stuff. A lot of engineers don't like to write because it's not "engineering", but when it comes down to it if you're the one who understands a system better than anybody else, you're the one who should tell other people about it, am I right? That's why I don't really mind all the reports. That, and they involve a lot of block diagrams.
1.5 hour - answer the phone calls and e-mail
I write books and novels of e-mail all day, I swear, and when that's not happening I'm answering the phone because something broke and a person on the factory floor has a question about fixing it. Or wants me to fix it. There are also other groups and engineers that I talk to on a regular basis... not all of them are electrical engineers doing wires, we have aerospace engineers who need electrical support for flight controls, and propulsion engineers who need us to display stuff going on with their engines. I barely know what an engine does but it doesn't matter, whenever I need to know anything I just e-mail one of the propulsion types and it's all good.
1.5 hours - go to meetings
Meetings are there to keep the phone calls and e-mails from getting out of hand. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they're annoying. But the longer you're an engineer, the more time you'll spend in meetings. I think the senior management guys who've been around 30 years probably do nothing but go to meetings, mostly to shield me from them so I can get some actual work done. And like anything else, if you become an engineer and learn that you LOVE meetings there are paths you can take to get you into more of them, but that hasn't sounded good to me yet.
1 hour - fix things that need fixed
If you can't tell someone else how to do something, you have to do it yourself, that's just the way things work. Fixing stuff requires in depth understanding of the system and knowing how to interpret data... it's sort of an art, but you'll learn how to do it. It always gets better as you age.
1 hour - run tests
Any time you make a system you have to prove that it actually works, so we run tests. Sometimes it involves sitting in an airplane pushing buttons. Other times it involves putting a box in an oven, or a vibration chamber, or a big microwave. Either way it involves me setting up a test, working with test people who do this sort of thing full time.
0.5 hours - go to school
I've gone back to school part time to get a master's degree, so I spend more time in school than most engineers, but it's hard to be an engineer without spending some time in training classes and stuff. Really, anybody with the determination to make it through college can't hate school, otherwise they wouldn't have made it in the first place, so there aren't many jobs you can get with a college degree that let you quit learning. My company has training classes, too, for things people need to know about airplanes, and there are training classes vendors put on so we understand what they're selling us. Those classes usually have free snacks and sodas provided, by the way.
0.5 hours - track things in databases
Databases are basically just block diagrams with really big blocks, but I put them as their own category because they're, well, bigger. We have databases to keep track of drawing numbers, parts lists, reports, projects, wires, issues, you name it. So I spend a lot of time creating databases or maintaining our databases or entering data into somebody else's databases (in that big box that says, "engineering response").
0.5 hours - meet with vendors
This is like a meeting, but we invite people from the outside.
0.25 hours - think about how messy my desk is
There's a company policy about keeping your desk clean. I don't know who made this policy, but he/she was not an engineer. Anyway sometimes I clean my desk. Once a month is my goal on that one... every 12 weeks is more realistic.
0.5 hours - eat donuts
Or other non-productive activities... if you're talking to other engineers while drinking coffee and eating donuts, we call that "living the dream"! Engineering is a friendly occupation. We're not petty, there's low drama, we like to geek out with everybody, and we bring in donuts for the office. I hang out with engineers on the weekends, and we watch Hackers and talk about Star Trek. And drink.
So that's about what engineers do! And if you can't tell, I like my job and think that other people should be engineers because the more candidates we have to chose from, the smarter we'll be in general. Yes, it's sometimes tough. Yes, you have to take some extra math classes, and the engineering classes themselves aren't easy, you have to want it. And once you start work, there are times when you'll end up staying late or coming in on a Saturday. But it's always been fun enough to keep me wanting it so I'd say it's worth it. If you're thinking about being an engineer and have some hang-ups, ask me questions and I'll clear it up. It's great way to go and even though I had no idea what I'd be doing when I started this journey, I've never regretted it.
if your job fits into science, post here, if it fits into politics, post there. maybe someone has a "creativity" career. hell, even if you're not old enough to have a "career", feel free to just write about your job, we've had stuff like that before. Somebody a million years ago who worked in fast food wrote us an article about it, and to this day whenever I throw out all the stuff on my tray I always make sure to throw away the paper thing that's under everything else, thanks to whoever that was.
= my life
Captain of the SNSDW
