Engineer – The ultimate brand

My four undergrad years of mechanical engineering at Pune’s premier institute, College of Engineering (Pune) were far from technically intensive. As I spent countless hours cooking in the heat of my dorm room and feeding myself on what Martians dare call food in my cafeteria, I often pondered, on the merits of engineering.

Today, in cleaner and quieter surroundings and further technical hammering at Michigan, my thought process has reached its end. Engineers of the world! Stand Up and congratulate yourself. You deserve a thundering applause. (Industrial engineers are advised to clap quietly or celebrate indoors)

A sense of pride tagged with an ever present sense of know how fills me up. Through Cars, Planes, Buses and structures, my brain begins working overtime to evoke engineering principles. In fact, I feel no fear in describing the working of any system, mechanical or otherwise, to any one who is ready to listen. By Jove, I might be horribly wrong! But I am certain that an engineer’s guess would sound the most plausible.

Purists will argue that any one who studies science will be equally adept at explaining how things work. But only an engineer can look beyond and proclaim how things fail. I am now at a full-faced grin. We engineers are really something else!

Those used textbooks make flashy returns when I dig for answers. I think of factor of safety when I place heavy loads on flat surfaces. Cooking rice in the kitchen sends me plunging into the design problem we had regarding pressure vessels. While others “Oooh-Aaah” about rapidly spinning ballet dancers and I smirk happily knowing and radius of gyration and principles of energy conservation are behind the dancer spinning moves.

A car turns and I can’t help but think of the centrifugal forces and mgsin (theta) component of the car’s weight due to body roll. The engine, cranking away, battling fatigue stresses to provide gritty mechanical power and those wonderfully profiled gear cogs meshing like poetry to transmit power to wheels! I bounce with joy as I imagine of the springs and dampers that work for me. Ergonomics quickly classify me as 95-percentile man and I feel special. My joy reaches orgasmic levels as my front two tires loose tractive efforts as snow turns roads frictionless.

In a plane, I have a glow on my face as I look around. Non-Engineers and other non-mentionable climb aboard this pressurized vessel and entrust their lives to excellent engineering. A contraption that is likely to kill all in event of a failure, the minute it takes off, now stands as one of the safest ways to cover long distances. The hydraulics, the pneumatics, the stressed component machine design, the aerofoil shape and countless electronic wonders, all have to work without a glitch for us to survive. And they do with staggering repetition. I ogle at this level of engineering. I do, however, come crashing down with baggage transfer performance. Surely, Industrial engineers need to improve their act make a baggage transfer system that is as reliable as the glorious silver winged machines.

Buildings, Bridges and Roads…the very essence of structural engineering! Oh! How I wish I could share the joy of an electronics engineer as he fantasizes about electrons jumping energy levels! Or for that matter, even a computer engineer, as he manages to make machines process information faster then what was thought possible.

These are just simple examples.I haven’t even started with the complex off shoots of engineering, but I hope you get the point. Yes, as a breed we dress horribly. Purely because we place function higher then form. But as information sharers, we are each, sections of a modern encyclopedia. Theoretically we might fall short of scientists and altruistically white robed doctors might defeat us, but in all practical sense, there hasn’t been a non-religion involved issue that we have not solved.

Finance know how’s and management techniques could eventually make their case felt. A good song with delightful strumming of guitar chords, a stunning sketch and a heart-wrenching book could make me feel inadequate. Sports could throw more heroes at me.

But being an engineer first has given me a feeling of purposefulness and an ability to feel complete. Like a father who has answers for all his kid’s questions, I feel confident and upright and ready.

Engineers. Stand up and take a bow.