• Question: Is there anything bad about being an engineer?

    Asked by Ciara to Matthew, Neil, Paula, Pete, Philippa on 13 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Neil Taylor

      Neil Taylor answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      Hi Ciara!

      I would find it very hard to find something I disliked about engineering itself, but there are a couple realities about working as an engineer that need to be accepted and worked with – namely budgets and deadlines! At the end of the day, you are using your engineering skill to produce something – and there will usually be an acceptable timescale and cost associated with this!

      Although the combination of tough problems and deadlines/budgets can make the job difficult at times, I believe that the pros far outweigh the cons!

      Hope this helps!

    • Photo: Philippa Jefferis

      Philippa Jefferis answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      All jobs have their downside, the things you have to do even though you would rather be doing something more exciting. However overall the job is very rewarding.

      The hardest thing I find is that outside of engineering people don’t really understand what I do. I wish they did as I feel people undervalue the contribution engineering makes to their lives. They only notice it when it doesn’t work.

    • Photo: Pete Symons

      Pete Symons answered on 17 Mar 2015:

      Hi Ciara,

      Actually I don’t think there is anything in particular to being an Engineer which I would say was bad, anything that I think is bad, when I say bad I mean frustrating, difficult etc is pretty much common across any job you might find yourself in, in years to come. These things are things like time pressure, demands from your boss on top of an already busy workload, sometimes even quite times when you might be bored, as there is not enough work.

      So in answer to your question, I don’t think there is anything bad about being an engineer, but there are bad things about being in a job sometimes!

      Hope this helps

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