Sure, engineering does require technical competence which not every kid is interested in or have the discipline to achieve. To deal with this, I think we should ADVERTISE the fun interesting aspects to … trick the kids into going down this road. Once they’re hooked… “Gotcha!”… at which point they’d be motivated to learn the hard, technical stuff.
what’s this gibberish about? Henry showed me this article a while ago that the U.S. is falling behind in graduating engineers from our colleges! Yes, the U.S. is the most technologically advanced nation and we keep pushing the limits, but with the other countries rapidly catching up we won’t have the advantage for long. That’s why I’m trying to put together a mission of sorts. The goal is this: promote, no, ADVERTISE, the exciting and cool aspects of engineering. Make it appealing AND familiar to kids K-12. This way, more might consider an engineering major as opposed to some other lame pointless major. An even better result would be to motivate kids to get to college rather than be a high school dropout. Yes, engineering has its exciting and appealing aspects more than people know. And no, engineering isn’t just for nerds- actually, creativity, ingenuity, and practicality matters more than the technical background.

Here’s some more details about the plan…
Even engineering just for the sake of applied science and math, engineering as a social concept needs a major makeover. While the nerdy or geeky image can be blamed on engineers because most engineerings are nerdy and geeky, the true engineer is the practical scientist. To sell engineering and give it a new reputation, I think we need to sneak engineering into the pop culture- hence the mission title “Pop Engineering”. Here’s a list of various “fronts” this project can be put into motion.

1. Polling – we need an idea of what’s the public’s general impression of engineering and engineers. I believe this information should be done by random interviews and asking people on the street rather than filling out some survey.
2. Give engineering a human, personal side – watching the Winter Olympics, these competitors quickly become real people that you cheer for just because NBC gives them a backstory.
3. Find a person to be made into an engineering icon – the reason the NBC backstory on the olympians seem to work is their simplicity and emphasis on some everyday quality that people can relate to. This emphasis probably gives the Average Joe hope and the possiblity that “hey, I could be great too!”
4. Get exciting or exhilirating moments in engineering into the public eye – my personal favorite is NASA’s mission control, showcased in the movie APOLLO 13. Sure, these tense and critical moments rarely occur but the same goes for game winning shots. The media doesn’t showcase the grueling long hours that athletes practice, so why should engineering be known by its difficulty rather than possiblity for greatness?
5. Advertise the hell out of it – even the simplest, most pointless thing or person can become a pop phenomenon when given the right image and enough promotional power. We might need things like cool logos and slogans and just give these as much exposure as possible. Make the logo look like racing team’s logo – racecars and bikes need engineers…racing’s cool…racing’s fast…people like fast stuff.
6. Put all these together in some flyers for kids – Maybe throw in a CD or something for teachers to show and hand out to the kids. Then, professional engineers should volunteer and go back to the school they attended and just give a small talk, associating engineering with what the target audience of kids might be most interested at the moment.
7. I know there already are engineering education associations such as the American Association for Engineering Education, but these still take the traditional approach of promoting engineering as a purely academic discipline. I’m starting to brainstorm what aspects of engineering is cool to me and what possibilities I can accomplish that make me go through the grueling training. I’d love to get even more suggestions from everyone so we can target an even wider range of kids. So please, either leave your ideas below in the comments or email me at fanmail@jeffreylin.net.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 at 7:25 am and is filed under Non-Stocks, Society & Culture, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.