Feeling Superior?
Our profession enjoys rising prestige, but we still must work with and learn from experts in other fields.
By Henry Petroski
Last spring I taught a course on Great Projects that was open to all first-year students of the university, regardless of major. In a seminar setting, we discussed outstanding technological achievements and aspirations—mile-long bridge spans, green skyscrapers, interplanetary travel—things that make us, engineers and non-engineers alike, excited to be part of the human endeavor.
During one of the many tangents that naturally develop in such a setting, one student asked, “Why do engineering students feel superior to those of us studying in nontechnical fields?”
The question took me aback and back to my own student days. Then, it was my friends in the arts and humanities who were the ones who seemed to feel superior. They ridiculed us engineers for not being well-rounded academically and culturally, bluntly asserting that engineers were technicians without a soul, who designed bridges that collapsed, rockets that exploded, and airplanes that crashed. Technology was deemed inhumane and out of control.
What has changed? Well, for starters, engineers have come to be viewed as heroic individuals whose ever loftier ambitions leave us all in awe. Engineers are recognized as the creative people who bring us innovations like the smart phone, the personal computer, the Internet, and the World Wide Web, all of which have revolutionized the way we live, work, and play.
We realize that the English major may know more about great literature; the historian more about important dates and facts; the political scientist more about critical foreign affairs. But they seldom know more about technology, the lingua franca of the world today. Still, no one can know everything about everything.
I wonder if she was feeling a little inferior to the engineers who, in an increasingly technological society, know best how and why the invented things of the world work. I am not talking about knowing how to work those things, but how they are made to work and how to control them and make them work better. Or, in other words, how to invent and design ever improved versions of the marvels of modern life.
I did not hear my questioning student challenge the status of engineers; she was simply seeking an understanding of what it was that made them feel so important to society. I had the distinct impression that she enrolled in my Great Projects class precisely because she had a respect for the achievements of engineers. She just did not care to see them flaunt their role.
Few engineers do that, in my experience, because we too realize that there will always be a lot we do not know. We may know how things are designed and work, but we soon come to realize that we may not fully appreciate all the nontechnical dimensions of technical things. There are always questions, especially with innovative technologies, of what can be done ethically, what is appropriate culturally, what is feasible financially. Engineering is not an end in itself. It operates in a moral, social, economic, and aesthetic context.
Increasingly, engineers are being called upon to solve ever more complex problems on a planetwide scale and beyond. The solutions to such problems will necessarily involve cooperation among engineers and non-engineers alike. Those who understand and appreciate the world most broadly will be best prepared to succeed and excel in such a climate. And the most successful will be those who know not only the field of study inscribed on their diploma but also something about the fields of study of their colleagues.
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke. His most recent book is The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure.
Image Courtesy of Catherine Petroski