Ben Rehberg on Engineering

Simply put, engineering should be taught in high school.  Sure, engineering has many many disciplines, but the core concepts should be taught to all students.

I know a mechanical engineer who works for some huge corporation with DOD contracts.  When I was studying computer engineering in Colorado, he enlightened me on what exactly engineering is:  "Engineering is applying what you know."

My response: "Oh.  Okay."

At that time, I really wasn't listening and couldn't grasp just what he meant.  I entered the computer engineering program at Colorado Tech because it wasn't pure computer science (way too theoretical and math-ish), and electrical engineering just seemed too far to the hardware side of things.  Computer engineering sat right in the middle, just where I wanted to be.  All of everything.  The CE program had intensive math and programming courses as well as instruction in the EE field.  I could build computers from scratch AND program them.  What a party!

I never finished the computer engineering degree.  I cut and ran from Colorado Springs because everyone who worked in the computer field there, it seemed, had a Top Secret clearance.  I wasn't getting anywhere with zero experience out there.  I quickly changed programs and got an AS in Information Technology, even after taking all that math.

Where was I?  Oh, that's right.  Engineering.

If this country is going to progress, we need more math and science.  We need skills that can be applied in the real world and produce something.  So we also need to teach engineering basics.  If we provide students with an environment they can experiment in, they will gain the confidence to think abstractly about how to solve problems. I use "abstractly" over "outside the box" just to be different.

Usually when I want something I can't afford or can't find, I turn to my books and the Internet (with a capital I, folks) to see if I can just build it.  I subscribe to Make, I'm a Pro member at instructables.com, a member of the IEEE Computer Society, and have lots of notebooks scribbled with plans, drawings, requirements, and simple ideas.  I spend a lot of time thinking.  In fact, I bought the foundation blocks for my backyard deck, laid them out haphazardly, and sat on the idea for another five months.  It looks fantastic and will probably outlast the house.

I want high school kids to know a little bit more about what they want to do after they graduate.  Too many in my area have no plans for college, and the high school diploma is seen so often as the last stop.  Granted, not everyone wants to be an engineer, but there are skills stemming from those practices that can help every single kid for the rest of their life.

Skills like

• Problem solving
• Alternate sources of materials or information
• Stepping away from the reliance on electronics
• Critical thinking
• Multi-tasking

And more, but I'm just sitting here typing.

What spawned this post is the article I just read (click the post title) and my thoughts on speaking to high school crowds about engineering and how I would explain to them what engineering is.  Here's my first draft:

My name is Ben Rehberg, and I didn't know what I wanted to do when I graduated high school.  [Some blah blah blah on who I am and stuff].  I am now an engineer.

I'm going to take a little survey... Let me get a show of  hands:
Who hates school?
Who doesn't plan on graduating?
Who here knows exactly what they want to do when they graduate?

Can anyone tell me what engineering is?

[We'll assume no one answered]

Have you ever wanted to build something?  Invented anything?  It involves engineering.

Engineering, simply put, is taking what you know and solving a problem with it.  A lot of the time it involves building tangible things, like machines and devices, but it also applies to things you can't touch, like software and business processes.  Did you know that you can do those things?

That can't be all, but in that seven-second daydream, that's all I had.

Engineering has a lot to do with how you think, but it has even more to do with your confidence level.  Too many people look at someone working out a problem on MythBusters and immediately say "I could never do that."  And then they don't.  They get up the next day and are apparently happy with ten bucks an hour.

Okay, they're not happy, but they aren't exactly looking for something better.  They aren't scouring the Earth for a solution to their problem.  They have no idea that there are ways today to manufacture things in a spare room, spawning businesses all over the place.

I better try to close this up since my attention is waning.

Confidence is important.  Most people around here are born with the idea that this is all they get.  I want to open their minds to the possibilities of what's outside Adel (or their own community if I go on a speaking tour), and the thought that they don't have to settle for what they're given.  They have to make things.  I'm not going to push the political idea of "you have to go to work..." even though that's very apparent.  I want folks to realize that with the right skills (math and science), they can go anywhere.

I reserve the right to edit this post later, or post more on the subject.  By no means do I deem this post a complete idea.  I am Ben Rehberg after all.