Design News for Mechanical and Design Engineers

Your editorial struck a nerve. When I graduated from Kansas University with my ME degree in 1969, it sort of guaranteed a good job for my career. When I was a boy, I often worked with my dad on our cars. My dad was a 9^th grade dropout (due to the need for money in the depression), who was mostly a self taught mechanic. It was always fun to work with him, and to try to figure out problems and ways to fix them.

When I graduated from high school, I had really good grades in math and science. Unfortunately, at my little high school, the counselor didn't know much about engineering and told me that an engineer had to be able to draw. Since I had trouble drawing a straight line with a ruler, I thought engineering was a bad choice for me. So I was a math major for three semesters until it got too theoretical, then a physics major for two semesters, and finally got into engineering in the middle of my junior year when I learned that freestyle drawing was not a "requirement."

Unfortunately, most people don't work on their own cars anymore, including me, because of the complex computer controls. I'm not sure my way still works. But engineering is still fun. Design is still art and ingenuity, and there is terrific job satisfaction in seeing your ideas in solid pieces that work!

Jim Warrens, Senior Design Engineer, Dematic Postal Automation

We are the mechanical team advisors for the Souhegan High School (Amherst, NH) FIRST Robotics Team and work for the Pneutronics Division of Parker Hannifin in Hollis, NH. Mechanical advisors include Bob Bonham, Bob Santos, Andy Farkas, and Jay Becker. Other advisors include Bill Price of Yankee Publishing and Dave Day of Day Systems.

Each year starting in October we hold engineering classes for the students to prepare for the aggressive 6-week program that starts in January. The students learn "real life" experience for project development. They perform all tasks including fund raising, rebuilding drill clutches, and machining parts on a milling machine. The students see first hand how math and science apply to the real world. The main outcome is that they learn (and have fun at the same time). The students can describe the technical aspects of the robot in great detail. Their enthusiasm and pride are both contagious and rewarding. Every year they make us proud and we consider ourselves winners before we even ship the robot.

Andy Farkas, Design Engineer, Parker Hannifin, Pneutronics Division

The reason no one is going to engineering school is not that they don't have proper role models, or whatever. It is just that the kids do not believe the CEOs and their self-serving prattle about engineering shortages.

They have seen the engineers they know asked to work unpaid overtime and other abuses. They have seen engineers send out unanswered resumes while CEOs talk about shortages and hire H1B visa aliens instead.

The reason they are going for law, medicine, and business is because they do not see the raw deal in those fields that engineers have been getting.

Ed Gellender, PE, Jericho, NY,

To those CEOs crying crocodile tears about lack of engineering talent I have this to say: You are lying!! What you want is a lot of graduates knocking at your doors so you can keep engineering salaries down.

Society does NOT need more engineers. Otherwise society would pay far more than what it pays today.

You blur the picture by saying the kids don't see enough engineering role models on TV. Bull! By the time it comes to making a choice about their career, the kids are no longer kids, they are late teenagers and they are probably smarter than you and your CEOs think.

Jurek Kisielewski, PE

A common answer that I hear relates to…"I did well in science and math and everyone said those were the proper ingredients to make a good engineer."

What did it for me had to do with the in-credible avenues a graduate with an engineering degree has. No other profession seems to offer the same number of opportunities.

Greg Girardey, Operations Manager–Conveyor Systems, Pulaski, VA

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