• Question: Hi, what subject do you thing is most important for engineering?

    Asked by #STEM to Stu, Melanie, Abbie on 17 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Stuart Inglis

      Stuart Inglis answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      That’s a tricky one, it’s definitely a toss up between tech studies / design and technology, physics and maths. I’m going to plump for tech studies / design and technology as it shows the application of physics and maths to the practical world…and because it was my favourite subject at school!

    • Photo: Abbie Hutty

      Abbie Hutty answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      I’m with stu. Maths and physics are important as you have to be able to work out the technical stuff when you need to, but Design Tech is definitely the closest single subject that you learn at school to actually being an engineer.
      You start with a problem, or a brief for a customer, and you have to come up with ideas to solve it. Then you have to weigh up those ideas against each other and decide which one is the best and why. Then you have to develop that idea to make sure it meets all of your requirements, and can be made. And then it gets made! All of those steps are steps you have to take in any engineering project.

    • Photo: Melanie Zimmer

      Melanie Zimmer answered on 17 Mar 2016:

      It depends what kind of engineering you want to do. As a software engineer maths and computer science are useful subjects taught at school. All the other things you need (how to gather requirements, how to work with your customers, how to write reports, etc.), you would either learn at university or at work.

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