MOLECULES TO MONOLITHS How engineering careers make (almost) everything happen.

So, Why Don’t You Want To Be An Engineer?

Too few young people, their teachers or parents understand what “professional engineers” actually do and their vital role in society. Also not properly understood is the wide choice of job as an engineer virtually anywhere in the world. Furthermore, this choice remains open throughout an engineer’s working life. Very few engineering graduates are doing the same thing or are in the same place at the end of their career compared with when they started.

Graduate engineers work across most sectors in the economy in a job which offers: • involvement in constantly evolving science and technology, working as part of a team; • travel in world-wide industries with global companies; • working in diverse environments: town, country, marine or aerospace situations; • Engineers who speak and communicate well in English have a worldwide advantage through the adoption of English as the preferred international language.

When you next get something that is packaged in a cardboard box, carefully unfold the packaging. Observe the way it is formed from a single sheet of cardboard with minimal waste; imagine how the designer worked out the pattern of the cuts and folds and the sequence of operations to be undertaken by the machine that folded it so as to protect the article inside - a kind of “industrial origami”!

Researching, designing and successfully making things as part of a team gives tremendous job satisfaction, be it a cardboard box, an airliner, hospital, electric car, oil refinery, digital camera, latest smart phone app, football stadium or an artificial limb … all the work of professional engineers

In 1828 Thomas Tredgold, one of the first members of the Institution of Civil Engineers, defined civil engineering for the Institution’s first Royal Charter as “…the art of directing the Great Forces of Power in Nature for the use and convenience of man …”.

In today’s environmentally sensitive world, engineers of all disciplines develop and implement solutions to the challenges facing mankind which require innovative, sustainable and cost-effective answers. Perhaps the modern definition of “engineering” covering all its disciplines should be updated to “The art of creating a sustainable infrastructure which society can depend on”.

The demand for people qualified with engineering knowledge and skills is enormous. For school-leavers with a maths and science background, engineering and manufacturing present a significant opportunity for a viable, well-rewarded and exciting career.

This book explains the structure of engineering and the role of engineers in it. It is not intended to be read from start to finish, but more as a reference book whereby you can go back and forth finding things that match your particular interests. It is by no means an exhaustive catalogue, but is aimed at inspiring the reader to seek out more detail available on the internet, in particular on the websites of the engineering institutions and major engineering companies.

So, become a professional engineer and start thinking of the contribution you could make “for the use and convenience of man” - and to the benefit of planet Earth!