• Question: what does being an engineer involve

    Asked by calebjr03 to Zach, Todd, Daniel on 8 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by jwoody, Kari.
    • Photo: Daniel Morse

      Daniel Morse answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Its very broad and really depends on what type of engineer you are I guess!

      I’m a biomedical engineer, so my work involves developing, growing and testing the 3D tissue models that represent the roof of your mouth. For this I grow cells, count them and calculate the concentration of cells I need and have to add in to each experiment. then I grow them for about 2 1/2 weeks, then test them.. so it is multi-disciplinary. Lots of cell work, planning and organising, time management.

    • Photo: Zach Welshman

      Zach Welshman answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      In my opinion it is professional problem solving and creating products and services that society needs.

Comments

  • Photo: Ana

    Ana commented on :

    Hi Caleb!

    It involves a lot of things in my case, at work.
    It requires for me to understand how materials work, how the body works, how to test things, how to make things, how to make things repeatedly and not too expensive, make sure I keep the project within a budget, make sure things are done on time and of course, being able to describe what I do to a lot of different people with different backgrounds.

    As Daniel said, it requires being quite multi-disciplinary.

  • Photo: Sophie

    Sophie commented on :

    Hi Caleb,

    Engineering bring together lots of different subjects that you study at school. Like maths, physics and chemistry. In the case of the engineers in this zone we also have to use some knowledge of biology to understand how our bodies will respond to the implants/therapies/things are are making.

    Engineers also have to engage with lots of other professions so it’s important that we understand to some degree how other businesses or organisation work. An example of this is that we are starting a project with a company but before we do this we have to sign a contract to say that we won’t tell the companies competitors what they are working on. So I have to have knowledge of the legal documents needed to make this happen.

    I also think for engineers it is important that we keep up with technological developments. Like new software, equipment and things like that.