• Question: In today's society, how does engineering rank among other jobs?

    Asked by Abi to Jamie, Kristen, Sheun, Simon, Will on 16 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: William Scott-Jackson

      William Scott-Jackson answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      Engineering is very highly regarded in society. I would be so bold to hold in almost as high a regard as medicine. Engineers and their work are very highly respected and appreciated.
      As the world encounters more problems such as diminishing fossil fuels, greater healthcare demands and handling disasters; engineers will always be needed and it’s not a career that’s likely to go out of fashion any time soon.

    • Photo: Kristen Salzer-Frost

      Kristen Salzer-Frost answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      I think it is pretty highly ranked. We have a lot of responsibility, as the projects we work on could make the difference between life and death. In my case I’m designing buildings so that they are safe in a fire. Other engineers are designing medical equipment and others are keeping planes in the sky. It’s a very important job!

    • Photo: Sheun Oshinbolu

      Sheun Oshinbolu answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      Engineering ranks quite high. It is a well respected profession similar to being a doctor or lawyer and the characteristics of an engineer are very much valued even in non-engineering fields and profession. There always something in the news about it so it a very current profession that changes as societies needs change.

    • Photo: Jamie Johnston

      Jamie Johnston answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      This is an interesting question, I think you can approach it in different ways:

      Socially speaking I think engineering ranks quite highly but not nearly as high as doctors, lawyers or other traditionally high-power jobs. This could be due to how wide a spectrum engineering covers, or the fact that not many people know exactly what engineers do. Interestingly, the social ranking for job types changes depending on which country you ask, for example:

      In the UK we all value teachers and consider them important but they perhaps aren’t considered very high up on the ladder, and don’t earn as much as say a lawyer or banker. If you go to Germany however, teachers are ranked much higher and get paid more as a result.

      In terms of technological importance however, engineering is very highly ranked, it is the development, application and execution of all the new scientific discoveries we make as human beings, the world would be a very different place without it!

    • Photo: Simon Marchant

      Simon Marchant answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      There seems to have been a bit of a debate within engineering for several years now over this exact question, and over how to raise the social rank of engineering so that the profession gets the new engineers that it needs. Many people have argued over it for days at a time, so we’re probably not going to solve it here (in fact a lot of the reason that I’m An Engineer exists is because of this question)!

      Engineering is important to everything that happens in society though, like the others say, and that’s not going to change soon. I do think that how highly someone ranks engineering depends on the person more than some other professions: because there are no TV shows or celebrities who are engineers, your view of the profession depends more on personal experience! So in importance to society, I reckon engineering is extremely high, but in social ranking, who knows?!

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