How do we get kids to be engineers

[n0legs]

Yeah, I'm finding a lot of people on this board who really don't get it.... from jibes and jests, to basic, obvious wordplay and even puns, they somehow get all serious and start bleating about personal attacks, snide remarks and so on.... IT'S A FYKIN' JOKE, man... Worse still, even after I explain how it's a simple, non-personal joke directed purely at the humour in
Get it, now?
Do you see why this is just a joke, yet?

Now, if you still want to take my own self-deprecation as somehow being some kind of insult against you and start playing the victim over it, do it on your own time in the privacy of your own home, yeh? I have no time for special little snowflakes who sieze any opportunity to turn the spotlight onto them.


But if you really cannot stand my humour and want me to stop doing what I do for a living, just say so...
I'd attempt another joke about how cynicism is another mandatory quality in Engineering, but I'd probably get a flippin' lynch mob chasing me for such an insult!!!!!

Couldn't be bothered to quote your whole post.

Feeling better??
Reach in your bag for a tissue, they're there, down by your tampons. :lol:

You'll get used to us :wink:
Hi, by the way

 

[Tasky]

You'll get used to us :wink:
Hi, by the way

I'd probably be banned before you got used to me, though... decorum does not permit my usual blunt responses to such people!!

But still - Hi, how ya doin'?

 

[Chris152]

This article's written mainly about low-skill jobs
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... tudy-warns
but it does make me wonder how long it'll be before 'hands-on' engineering is replaced by computer design and robotic realisation/ manufacture. Which could mean my son being glued to screens so much of his time is doing something right, at least with regard to his wish to become an engineer.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I feel very lucky to have failed my 11+ and attended a good secondary modern school. The woodwork teacher canned you if you pushed your luck or if he was in a bad mood, but I learnt a good deal about woodworking. The metal work teacher came from industry and tried his best to get the better students into engineering, arranging visits to local engineering companies so that we could see what the different jobs entailed. He even got us into a steel works where we saw the blast furnace tapped, no H&S worries then so we stood next to the flow of molten steel running along a channel in the sand floor. Our blazers looked sparkley when we were under street lights later that night from the tiny globules of steel that had settled on them.

At a school reunion 50 years on the majority of us have done reasonably well despite attending a secondary modern which according to modern thinking were a dumping ground for the thick.

Great point and good post. My understanding is that a lot of the ideas behind the Secondary Modern/Grammar etc system were very sound but a number of issues and British snobbishness made much of it go wrong, possibly under-investment/effort on the Secondary moderns. I've heard it compared to the still current German system where technical streaming happens earlier and technical types are appreciated. A bit like Blitzkreig, invented by the British but made to work by the Germans. Or as my German friend would say "see my nice and useful VW, here is my wife's nice and useful VW.......Oh, you have a Rover!!".

Aaannnyyywayy - enough of the hissy fits.

A common fault (without going into the politics of the situation) was that in many areas there was no third alternative - no technical schools/colleges.
I read a letter once from someone who was in secondary school during WW2 who maintained he was the luckiest of all with his teachers - his woodwork teacher was a retired carpenter and his metalwork teacher a retired blacksmith. Perfect.

 

[Keith 66]

Well a bit of good news, just got sent our D&T class Gcse results, the best for years. They were a good class with some smart young people, maybe a few engineers or good tradesmen/women in the pipleine! So it looks like im still in a job for a while yet.

 

[dcmguy]

My dad was an engineer...became a planning manager ...helped with the build of manyof our nuclear power stations.
My mate's dad was an engineer...became a senior consultingpartner in a top 5 global accounting firm
Another mate's uncle was an engineer, had his own company, built some of the largest dams in the UK
Chap in our village is an engineer ..and a hydrologist ... consults to HMG on power power projects

I'm not an engineer, nor are any of the folk of my generation that I know, nor any kids.

Maybe there is a problem in the UK with engineers these days ..

So what is an engineer... the way Wiki choose to define it speaks pretty loudly ..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer

it takes the old 1960s characterisation and shifts it to today.
Is a genetic engineer an engineer ?
Maybe Globalisation means that traditional engineers who build dams and power stations are probably going to need to build a career in large corporates and the work is global.

Taking a wide view there may not be a problem with engaging youngsters to engineering, but if we define engineers as 'industrial engineers' from the 1960s then perhaps there is a problem of reduced demand in the uk for that sort of work.

I guess if we define engineers to include research into power management and materials science to design & build 'batteries' and 'green energy' generation and then enhanced space exploration capabilities for harvesting resources from other planets (whether food or minersls) then maybe there's huge demand for engineers already or in the near future?

 

[AJB Temple]

Interesting reply from dcm. My eldest is at uni (not UK) studying aerospace engineering. The university is very focussed on materials science. Graphene etc. We are not great at this in the UK as much as we used to be perhaps.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My lad's got an "A" in physics, an "8" in maths, "B"s in biology, chemistry, geography and computing, a 5 and a "C" in English and ... Engineering - so not much danger of his becoming an engineer. He's doing "A" level physics, chemistry, geography and psychology - my wife commented that he'll know how to wind me up even more with "A" level psychology.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I've been avoiding this thread. I'm an engineer (CEng) and get quite weary of the cyclic discussions in the IET magazine:

Why can't we attract more women into engineering ?
How can we get proper respect for our profession rather than being lumped together with Sky TV installers and City Engineers (aka binmen, in Coventry at least).
How can we get more young people to study engineering ?

I do however wonder how we get young people interested in becoming engineers.

Pay them properly.
Simple as.

He's right you know. Engineering magazines often have articles from industry moaning about the difficulty in finding good engineers. Flick to the job section at the back, and see why.

 

[Tasky]

He's right you know. Engineering magazines often have articles from industry moaning about the difficulty in finding good engineers. Flick to the job section at the back, and see why.

Our main employer recently applied Generic Role Profiling to all their staff.
A senior chartered Engineer was reclassified as "Technical Specialist", a role that pays £12k less than what the previous title attracted!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I don't how our local kids that wish to be engineers are getting on today ... the sixth form college's phone lines are down. :lol:

 

[RossJarvis]

Well a bit of good news, just got sent our D&T class Gcse results, the best for years. They were a good class with some smart young people, maybe a few engineers or good tradesmen/women in the pipleine! So it looks like im still in a job for a while yet.

Top job, keep up the good work and help yourself to a well deserved pint, ccasion5:

 

[RossJarvis]

He's right you know. Engineering magazines often have articles from industry moaning about the difficulty in finding good engineers. Flick to the job section at the back, and see why.

One of our local companies had a good idea (actually a fairly large multinational), they sent us 18yr + apprentices, who were paid 9 grand a year, sent to college for 1 year full time to start and then integrated into the workforce and at college over the next year. Accommodation was paid for, all PPE provided FoC. 2 out of 16 were ladies on my last year instructing them. How jealous they were of their friends who went to uni and left with staggering debts.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Different profession, but my daughter's friend went straight from A levels to work for KPMG -she's now a qualified accountant with no university debts. I felt pleased with myself - she applied for it after reading an article in The Times that I had pointed out to her.

 

[roosaann]

Engineers are kids who never stopped playing with toys. The toys just get bigger (or smaller) and a lot more expensive. The learning will come with motivation and education.

 

[Keith 66]

Well we have started the new D&T gcse course with year 7,8 & 9, lots more theory, all the projects that we used to make to build skills with tools have gone out the window. Projects left have to incorporate learning such as electronics. Lots more demos & virtually no making.
Found out yesterday that the time allowed for the Year 11 final project is just 30 hours. That includes conception, research, planning, drawing and just 7 hours actually making a prototype. The build quality of a project is now not considered important rather the idea behind it.
So if kids want to make stuff dont do D&T!
Im not sure what to make of it only glad i havent got to teach it. I reckon the person who will have the most fun will be the technician!

 

[Stanleymonkey]

Well we have started the new D&T gcse course with year 7,8 & 9, lots more theory, all the projects that we used to make to build skills with tools have gone out the window. Projects left have to incorporate learning such as electronics. Lots more demos & virtually no making.
Found out yesterday that the time allowed for the Year 11 final project is just 30 hours. That includes conception, research, planning, drawing and just 7 hours actually making a prototype. The build quality of a project is now not considered important rather the idea behind it.
So if kids want to make stuff dont do D&T!
Im not sure what to make of it only glad i havent got to teach it. I reckon the person who will have the most fun will be the technician!

That sounds ridiculous - lots of science has gone down the line of video clips and demos. But DT as well! How are they going to learn anything. That's just bizarre thinking.

 

[Rhyolith]

D&T basically = product design, which was its successor subject at A-level when I did it. Which is a more appropriate name for what it is these days... what is of course ingored is that most people doing that course actaully want to make stuff (or god forbid, actaully learn to make stuff :shock: ).

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Wasn't it C(raft)DT before that? When I did "A" level it was stiill woodwork.

 

[heimlaga]

I am 36 so I am young-ish. With a Bathelor's degree in construction egineering and know how to calculate the strenght of things. I have well over 20 years experience of building and repairing stuff. I have worked as a carpenter both building modern wooden houses and also shifting rotten logs in log buildings. I can make furniture as well as joinery. I know enough bricklaying to build a chinmey when needed. I can weld and forge and rebuild machinery. i have done some logging now and then. I usually repair my own car and tractor. I am somewhat accustomed to cirkular sawmills. I have shifted planks and frames and even taken part in shifting the keel on a wooden boat. I have repasired trhe laminate of a fiberglass boat.
Well......that sounds pretty good doesn't it......... but it makes me totally and eternally unemployable as an angineer.

They expect an engineer to be at most 24 years old. Solid upper class with a lifestyle that befits a high status job. Rich enough to not need the wage to uphold his lifestyle. Never a day on the dole nor a week ill in his entire career. The only desireable qualification is computer skills.
First and foremost he must not, that is MUST NOT have any sort of practical experience with the job he is going to plan or lead.

No wonder engineering is doing downhill and all development is focused on computers......