Hug an engineer because we need it.

Well, at UTSA it is. (National Engineers Week was actually the full 3rd week of February). Nonetheless, that shouldn’t hinder us in the slightest bit from marveling at the prestigious seed of innovation that these elegant minds have ubiquitously planted in our soil of life. Take a good look around. Ask yourself: “What can be better?” Now, hold that thought for a brief moment because in honor of this week and my future profession, I dedicate this post to these reputable innovators. In tandem, I will share some insights and goals of my own for when I do tackle on this discipline in the “real world”.

Taking it back to last fall semester, IEEE hosted a seminar featuring a guest speaker who was none other than James Mercier. You’ve probably never heard of him (I surely haven’t at the time), but he is a professional engineer in hydraulics engineering who’s worked for several private sectors and more notably, a part of the design division of the Texas Department of Transportation. After a brief introduction by the IEEE officers and an intermediate break to deplete their ten boxes of large, ambrosial pizzas, James Mercier took the floor. He gave a formal background on his career history and immediately after, he prompted us with the following:

What is an engineer?

We gave him trivial responses, yet his mannerisms suggested there was a profoundly mind-blowing answer. “Someone who’s good at math!” “An innovator!” “Scientist?” The list went on and on. Everything you could stereotype an engineer with we threw out there. He proceeded to compile our list on the whiteboard when shortly after, he posited:

What’s the difference then, between an engineer and an engineering technician?

We gave our head a good scratch, but we came up empty-handed. All these traits were suitably fit for an engineering technician to some degree. These specialist were trained to attain the skill sets and undergo the rigor of understanding general engineering concepts. So what could the difference be?

He gave us a personal anecdote about a day in the field and more interestingly, about a man who stared at a block. I don’t recall too much about the specifics of this particular story, but the gist was this man picked up an oddly shaped block out of a pile of other oddly shaped blocks and knew exactly where it belonged. He knew every single strand of detail about that block. How it fit, it’s functionality, measurements, restraints, everything. He knew that block’s purpose in life just by looking at it!

This was the answer. This was the engineer. Not merely the diligent student who monotonously spent countless hours studying fluid dynamics or assembly language and so aptly earning a bachelors in (enter engineering discipline here). This was the thinker who can generate and implement uncanny, million dollar ideas that would completely shatter our expectations into oblivion. Ideas that would potentially change how we live. In essence, this man simultaneously scared and intrigued me. Whatever superpower he possessed cannot be attained from any four-year university, blog post, or let alone any of the 34 million volumes sitting in the Library of Congress. This guy grew up an illustrious wanderer. So how do we spot one?

Luckily, the world is populated with such courageously curious minds. They’re everywhere. Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Bill Nye, Henry Ford, Daniel Bernoulli, Gustave Eiffel, Kevin Mitnick. There’s too many to name and even more going unnoticed; all with the same intentions and mindsets for universal improvement. We should appreciate their dedicated craft and influence on our daily lives. Without them, our technological timeline would be delayed for quite some time.

I, for one, am enthused to have chosen this career path. I cannot begin to express my anticipation to partake in this innovative movement to collaborate with like-minded engineers and inevitably make an impact. While I cannot simply glance at a piece of paper and an envision an inexpensive, yet hyper-efficient microscope to diagnose a multitude of lethal diseases, I believe I have the intuition and creativity to innovate something to that magnitude. Ultimately, I would like to extend a hand and open up career and education opportunities to others through my passion for technology. Growing up, I’ve taken a handful of opportunities for granted that others less-fortunate more so rightfully deserve and as a result, I would like to give back. That is my long-term goal as an up and coming engineer.

So on an ending note, do you remember when I asked what you think can be better just from the confines your surroundings? Have you accumulated a list? If so, then I will now propose a new question: “How can you make it better?” If your brain is uncontrollably spewing out ideas, then you, my friend, are halfway to being an engineer. To earn the other half, all you have to do is make it happen! I’ll make sure to commemorate you when it does.