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Friday, April 14, 2017

Final Synthesis Post

By: Adam Tarrant, Callaghan TysonMayer, Mindy Lee, Yiran Li

Through the past few months, writing and reading blog posts written about different topics within the engineering community, it’s easy to learn about the different disciplines within the engineering field. Many important things such as; a typical day an engineer would experience, what to expect when landing a job within an engineer career, and many other factors that are important for an aspiring engineer to know about. This blog project has given us the opportunity to expand our knowledge and insight on the world of engineering as a whole. It has better prepared us for our futures that extends past graduation. Not only was the positive impacts engineers have on the world shown but the negatives were as well, giving us a genuine understanding of engineering as a whole.  
Engineering itself is very essential in our daily lives. Without engineers’ help, we would not have been able to do a variety of things, such as, managing the world’s resources, controlling pollution and seeking for the solutions to prevent environmental problems. To be specific, mechanical engineers invented the cell-phone which is the most essential device that humans use today. Environmental engineers have devised a solution to dispose of wastes in better and cleaner ways. There are many more examples from different fields of engineers. If it were not for their effort, we would not have had a chance to live in a better world.
Further, various types of engineers focus on their own field to make a great contribution to improve the quality of our daily lives For instance, chemical engineers improves the techniques of producing fertilizers to increase the quantity and quality of food. Environmental engineers clean the oil spills, develop ways to purify water, regulate the waste disposal, and find efficient energies. Civil Engineers create the basis of the world’s infrastructure. They make cities operate at higher efficiency and grow and prosper through road and building improvements.
Just like any profession, engineers make mistakes too. A lot of the time, an engineer’s mistake can have very intense effects; these effects differ depending on the type of field. Chemical engineers can damage the environment with harmful chemicals, especially when they are disposed of improperly. The energy sources used by chemical engineers are usually non-renewable, therefore damaging the environment further. Chemical engineers are also responsible for creating nuclear weapons, used for mass destruction. Environmental engineers make mistakes that can harm people and the environment. Miscalculating water purification can make civilians sick like  in the case of the Flint Water Crisis. Poor waste distribution control can heavily damage the environment, along with other cases of poor control over pollution.  

With any career or discipline, comes many advantages as well as disadvantages that can play a huge role in the world’s efficiency and health. The world will always need engineers. They provide the world’s infrastructure as well as expanding its technological and chemical pursuits. In these pursuits, engineers will come across certain challenges and risks that they will have to adapt to in effort to finish the current project they are working on.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Engineering Olympics

Written by: Adam Tarrant


         

        Very recently, Wilkes University held their annual Engineering Olympics. This is very intriguing to me in a multitude of ways. In the competitive competition, “the student participants heralded from seven area schools, building and testing catapults, solving problems using electrical circuits, and other engineering related tasks” that paved a medium for these students to gain an insight of what the future of engineering is like (WNEP.com). 
          Every student that participated was in pursuit of the gold: $10,000 in scholarship money. The prize alone gives the students an incentive to compete and become the best engineers they can be. The students will want to succeed and prosper within the engineering community, while allowing the competition to further recruit students into these STEM careers. 
           Although the different tasks within this competition seem simplistic, is forces the students to think outside the box, like most engineers are required to do to succeed.
           My final thoughts are that more organizations should do this more often, reaching out to young students, giving them an opportunity that many engineers today never got.
           



My last hope

Written by : Seungyeon Lee

This is the last blog post I am going to write about my field. For each person, nearly 10 posts were written individually. It was very interesting that there were many things that I have not known about what chemical engineers do in the future. Also, when I was studying about the challenges that chemical engineers face and those problems that chemical engineers make, I realized that those are the key points that engineers should keep in mind while dealing with other problems.

One thing very unique from doing this blog post, I have not only learned a lot about my field, but also  I found that I am a 100% into my field. I felt very happy and thought chemical engineering fits the best of me. Reviewing some of the articles about engineering, it shows that there still is a gender-bias in an engineering field. I have many engineering major woman friends, and I know that they are as much as convinced to their field and their future being an engineer. I am hoping by the time I am working in this field there is less gap between the number of men and women working in this field.