1. Introduction
Everything that we use to make our life more comfortable are created and maintained by engineers. Clearly engineers play an important role in our lives. However, there is a shortage of them. I believe that studying engineering should be encouraged and we should make engineering a more attractive career. In this report, I will address the importance of engineers, reasons why we are lacking them and some solutions that can help solve the problem.
2. The importance of Engineers
Engineers apply their knowledge in mathematics, sciences, economics and society and use their practical skills to design and build structures, machines, devices, materials, systems, and processes1. Looking around us, everything from vehicles, buildings, facilities to our laptops, mobile phones have been created and are still maintained by engineers. Hence, it is hard to imagine how our lives will be without them. Moreover, engineers are those who has changed and shaped the world today. “Engineers will drive the solutions to today’s most pressing problems” – Quote by Dean of Engineering, UC Berkeley. One of the most significant events in the history of the world’s economy is the Industrial revolution in eighteenth and nineteenth century. Starting in the UK, the manufacturing of products has switched from animal and labour based to machine based. Since then, the UK economy, and later the most of Europe economy have developed dramatically. Engineers continue to solve one of the biggest problems today, global warming. The effects of temperature rising for just 2 degrees Celsius is massive: destruction of vast majority of coral reefs, billion of people suffering from lack of water and flood, 30% of species extinction, cereal production reduces in low latitude, etc2. Engineers are those who are designing various machines with high efficiency and low carbon emissions, building power stations using wind energy, or solar energy and developing many other means to slow down the rise of the planet’s temperature. It can be concluded that engineers are very important and are needed in solving almost all of the world’s problems.
3. Reasons for the lack of engineers
Despite the importance of engineers, there is a shortage of them. Why is this so? Firstly, engineering is a hard subject since you have to have a very broad knowledge, a good understanding of mathematics and sciences and excellent technical skills. Furthermore, there are a large proportion of students nowadays that do not enjoy studying mathematics and sciences. Due to these facts, the number of people who are capable of becoming engineers is very limited. Secondly, people who are capable of being engineers have strong background in mathematics, something which is also required to work in financial services. The average salary for a person working in that sector is higher than that of engineers, hence again, many people tend to choose it over engineering as their career. According to unistats3, only 44% of engineering students in Cambridge work as engineers. Thirdly, many people still believe that engineers are just plumbers, or electricians, and that engineers are doing “dirty” jobs. This can put off people from considering engineering as their career. Fourthly, from an early age, people were not advised well about their careers. “Schools slammed for failing to encourage next generation of engineers”4. Schools prefer if students choose the “softer” subjects in opposing to the more academic subjects such as maths and sciences so as to increase pass rates to up their positions in league tables. Many students did not realise at the time that by choosing those subjects, they have closed their doors to many careers which include engineering. Finally, the rise in university tuition fees has put off many people from applying. However, you can not become an engineer without an undergraduate degree. This impact has a bad effect on many industries that are seeking engineers
4. Proposed solutions
Due to the importance of engineers and the high demand of them, it is essential to come up with suitable solutions to increase the number of qualified engineers. In order to make a change to something, it must be done from its roots. Schools, families, and the society should try to encourage and give good career advices to young people. Parents should observe whether their kids enjoy playing with toys like lego, or building things. If they do, then parents can explain what engineers do and encourage their interest in engineering. Schools can organise various activities to promote sciences and mathematics. For example, they can bring the Cambridge Hands-On Science (CHaOS) Road Show to their school. CHaOS volunteers will go to the schools and demonstrate various science and engineering experiments to the school kids. For the older students, the school should advise them about various different careers, about what sort of work each career involves, the salary, the requirements for each careers so that all young people are aware of their options in later life. They will be able to choose a more suitable path for their career. If this is done well, we will not have to see able students leaving school after the age of sixteen or still see so many students complaining how they hate mathematics and sciences, the essential subjects for many important careers like engineering. Since engineers are stereotyped as a bit nerdy and doing “dirty and manual” jobs, the media should walk in and change the society’s views on engineers. This can be done through articles, TV shows (especially family shows and comedy shows since they are very popular among young people), etc. The media should also make the public aware of the fact that despite the rise of tuition fees, the students that wish to pursue an engineering degree should not be put off as they will still gain more out of it by sticking to the path they have chosen. They will be doing something that they enjoy and will eventually be more likely to get a better paid job than the jobs they will get without a degree. In addition, the salary of an engineer should be increased since an engineering career involves a lot of hard work and engineers, without doubts, play an essential role in our lives.
5. Conclusion
There is a shortage of engineers – those who have the power to shape the world and change our lives. It is essential that measures are taken to increase the number of qualified engineers, such as encouraging the future generation to become engineers and improving the prospects of an engineering career