Design News for Mechanical and Design Engineers

Where the jobs are

Earl W., Seattle, WA

I would hope Design News would apply some critical thought to what the connection might be between the Engineering Profession and the manned space program. Even as Armstrong was making that great leap, the pink slips for engineers were being cut. Nothing in your editorial made the case that this program will be the salvation for dwindling engineering graduation rates. By 1972, an engineer in Titusville was more likely to be found pumping gas than working with rocket scientists. Today, it is the nature of these businesses to expand and contract as the program matures. Engineering is driven by disruptive technologies. The engineering boom of the '80s was fueled by the changes in computing and electronics. Now that endeavor is done more effectively offshore, and the businesses here are in recession. Consequently, it is less attractive to study math and the hard sciences than say, philosophy and law. Both require the same dedication to succeed. Want to have more engineers, first kill all the lawyers. Make it less attractive to be a business major. You don't see any H1-B's in those fields (it ain't allowed). Guess who wrote those laws?

Jack Gratteau, Morgan Hill, CA

I believe your Mars mission view is way off base. Bush has proposed this merely as a feel-good project to boost his image. Government pork funding of a lark such as this will not provide any real growth in our economy. This is like shooting a fireworks display to attract people to a carnival. Young people are getting the word straight from the news these days, that engineering jobs are being outsourced to India where they will work for $10K a year. Who would want to sign up for a career that is on its way out of the country? I'll bet that, Mars mission or not, within 5 to 10 years there will be almost no one entering U.S. engineering colleges. This is a sad state of affairs indeed. Why not spend the billions that would be wasted on Mars by finding a cure for cancer? I'll bet this disease has affected someone near to every one of us. Biotechnology will require the support of many engineering functions. And this is a technology not so readily outsourced due to the intense research and control required. Let's put the money where it matters.

Deane G. Williams, Farmington, CT

While I agree with your review. I believe it applies to a different place and time. The inspiration this generation of kids needs is to know that there will be career opportunities in engineering left in this country. However, since about 1980, engineering jobs have been disappearing from our country, with a more accelerated rate in the last few years. Bottom line is that we do not need a mission to Mars, we need a mission to Earth. Better yet, we need a mission to the USA. I am telling my grandchildren to be doctors and lawyers and such. In the game for longer than I care to acknowledge,

Alex Marez, Fort Worth, TX

People (including the next Bill Gates) gathered at a Denver museum in January to watch the landing of the Mars Rover.

While a manned trip to Mars would certainly be captivating for the entire world, it is not a lack of exciting space projects that has caused the demise of engineering in this country; it is the demise of manufacturing. I am of the same generation as you, but my motivation for going into engineering was not because of my watching the moon landing in 1969; it was my fascination with both automobiles and factories. While our space program still limps along, more and more factories are being shuttered every day in this country. In 1970, 25 percent of all automobiles sold in the U.S. were Chevrolets. Now the entire market segment for GM is 28 percent. Engineering degrees are declining simply because there are no jobs for the people who get them. Sure, graduation rates for foreign countries are increasing, but so are the opportunities for those graduates. What's more, who are those graduates working for? American companies that manufacture in their country! Not only that, while American universities are suffering declining funding from both private and public sources, American companies are donating millions of dollars to Chinese universities in order to produce more engineering students. I think that's scandalous. There is hardly a consumer product now sold in the U.S. that isn't foreign-made, primarily in China. I find that disgusting and frightening. In fact, the biggest concern my colleagues and I have is whether or not we will even have a job in ten years. If I had a teenage child, the last major I would suggest to them to study is engineering and the people I work with all share that sentiment. The bottom line is the career of engineering is on life support in America and the only thing that's going to revive it is when we can once again go into a store and buy an American-made TV, stereo, frying pan, hair dryer, hammer, shirt, shoes, paper clips, stapler, computer, light bulb, screws, nails, CD player, clothes iron, soap dish, hair brush, camera, and any of the other items that now come from other countries.

Gene Maslana, Abbott Park, IL

I totally agree with you that the U.S. needs something inspiring to attract students back into engineering schools. However, it's the lawyers and the MBAs that are currently outsourcing engineering to India and elsewhere—and getting a fat paycheck to do it as well. So would the engineering mission to Mars just get outsourced to Russia and China? It's highly likely in my mind that would happen. I'm also puzzled by President Bush's timing. Why not spend the $100B or so it would take to go to Mars on converting our energy infrastructure to renewable forms, and drastically cut our dependence on foreign oil? Such a conversion would take all the engineering effort and creativity that going to Mars would; but then again, this too could just end up going to the lowest bidder somewhere in Asia.

Gary Jacobs, DN reader

In response to your editorial on the outsourcing of engineering jobs to Russia, where they earn less than half that of American engineers (DN MYVIEW 01.12.04), I say maybe if U.S. companies would go overseas to hire their CEOs, directors, etc., their companies could save the real big bucks!

Richard Stibbe, Michigan City, IN

The article "A Jump Start in a Fast World" (DN 01.02.04) speaks as if the idea of Reference Design was a new idea. Well, it isn't. The Integrated Circuit is the embodiment of the first wholesale application of this concept —one important instance dates back some forty years or so. I suppose that people then and later just did not realize or conceptualize in their minds what exactly they were doing—which was preparing the way for the avalanche of electronic applications which has ensued. Up to that time, the newcomer — digital electronics—had languished, for everyone knew how to do a digital design better than the next guy and none of them interoperated well. Came the DTL and TTL IC logic designs and the industry was launched. It is a pity that the software community has never grasped this fundamental concept and even now resists it with bone-crushing and mind-numbing stubbornness, afraid of becoming marginalized (which would be good).

Allen N. Wollscheidt, Chandler, AZ

Just a quick note to let you know how much I enjoy your back-page column "Calamities." I have a background in Welding Engineering and NDT, and the firm I work for makes fluid-mixing equipment in a variety of materials from composites to Zirconium along with Duplex Stainless and all of the high-nickel alloys. I appreciate your writing style. I read my issue from back to front.

Paul Ipolito, Rochester, NY

I always read your Calamities column, but I particularly enjoyed the exploding tire rim story (DN 12.01.03). As a teenager back in the 1960s, I worked in a trucking company maintenance shop. One day I heard a very loud bang and then a second bang. Everybody looked around to discover a very shaken mechanic crawling out from under a truck. He had removed the tire and laid it on the floor. The rim ring let go and went vertically clear through the roof and landed out in the parking lot over 200 ft from the building. Nobody was hurt, but it sure demonstrated the power of compressed gas. As we stood looking at the failed tire, several of the mechanics remembered that a few years earlier an accident occurred near Logansport, IN. A ring failed on a truck as it passed a car going the other way. The ring hit the rear side of the car and spun it off the road.

David Monnier, Detroit, MI

Author Ken Russell's response:

Split rim explosions are scary, even second hand. Your stories are downright spooky. Such failures are unlikely to involve metallurgy, hence would not come to me. I have had several of the one-piece rims, though.

I'd like to respond to your editorial on writing skills (DN MYVIEW 10.30.03). When I took my SATs, I scored 790 in math and 720 in verbal. Among other schools, I sent my score to MIT. I was shocked to find that my math results ranked in the bottom 25 percent of submissions, while my verbal score ranked in the top 0.1 percent. I envision a campus filled with people whose heads lean to the right because that side of their brain is so much larger than the other. Bad English does not always equate to bad writing. The function of language is to convey ideas and information. If that is done correctly, I would argue that the writing is good regardless of any grammatical inadequacies. I have encountered my fair share of poorly written documents, but I've also run across meticulously correct English that made no sense whatsoever. Good manuals generally require close cooperation throughout the development cycle between technical writers and the engineers responsible for the product. Unfortunately time constraints often prevent this cooperation, and engineers are generally not allowed to spend time on a project after the engineering portion is complete.

Keith Tyra, Dayton, OH

I understood the importance of communication back in college. I was excited to take my technical writing class as I thought it would be beneficial. Too bad it was taught by the English department and they were more interested in teaching us how to design web pages. My worst problem with bad writers is this: Ever heard of Spellchecker?

Aaron Thrash, Menlo Park, CA