essay on science and engineering

Essays About Engineering: Top 5 Essay Examples Plus Prompts

Engineering is one of the most sought after professions for the 21st century. If you are writing essays about engineering, use these examples below.

A common stereotype of engineers is that they build houses, but that is simply not the case. Nearly all of the things we enjoy today are because of engineers. The food you buy at the grocers is deemed as safe thanks to the chemical engineers who analyzed its contents. The smartphone or laptop you’re using to read this right now was made possible by computer engineers.

The house you’re living in, the offices you go to work at, these marvels made our life easier because of engineers who dedicated their time to innovate and solve our problems through science and mathematics. After all, accuracy is what sets engineers apart.

If you are writing an essay about engineering, here are 5 essay examples to help you write an insightful piece.

1. Why Engineers Are Becoming Increasingly Important by Christopher McFadden

2. women in engineering: why i chose an engineering degree by purity muhia, 3. taking lessons from what went wrong by william j. broad, 4. the way i work: brendan walker by gary ryan, 5. engineering ethics and its impact on society by dr. william m. marcy and jane b. rathbun, 1. different types of engineering, 2. future of engineering, 3. how to become an engineer, 4. pros and cons of engineering innovation, 5. is engineering hard.

“ Now consider a society that is completely free of engineers. What would it look like? It’s a hard thing to picture because for as long as humans have existed, engineers (in some fashion) have also existed. 

The closest we can probably think about would be a hunter-gatherer one. This society would literally be one of pure survival. There would be no innovation, no technology of any kind. As soon as one or other members of that society created a trap, a spear or improved on a technique for smashing things an engineer will have been “born” .”

McFadden eloquently discussed how engineers transformed our way of living and the big role they’ll be playing as society becomes increasingly reliant on technology. He also discussed the impact engineers have in different sectors such agriculture, health, and education.

“ There are some girls who still grow up thinking that engineering and science isn’t meant for women. It is important to remember women can thrive in the world of engineering. I chose engineering because I loved math and science, and engineering promised real opportunities to change the world. ”

Muhia is now one step closer to achieving her dreams of making a change in the world as she now holds a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering. 

In this essay, which she wrote back in 2016 as a student intern, she discussed the origins of her interest in engineering and aimed to inspire other young women to pursue this profession as a way to bring a different perspective to a vocation dominated by men.

“ It is not that failure is desirable, or that anyone hopes for or aims for a disaster. But failures, sometimes appalling, are inevitable, and given this fact, engineers say it pays to make good use of them to prevent future mistakes.

The result is that the technological feats that define the modern world are sometimes the result of events that some might wish to forget. ”

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner William Broad took a dive into the subject of how some of the innovations we enjoy today were conceptualized based on the tragedies of the past. Written in the midst of the Deepwater Horizon Drilling Rig Disaster, the article gathered the takes of distinguished engineers and used infamous engineering mishaps to discuss the adjustments made to improve work conditions and quality of life.

“ Novelty is a big part of creating a thrilling experience, so fairgrounds have historically been early adopters of new technology… Now the challenge for people like me is to produce content that controls and choreographs people’s emotional experience using this technology. ”

Coined as the world’s only thrill engineer, Brendan Walker reminisced his transition from an aeronautical engineer to conceptualizing and designing roller coasters and other theme park rides, and how understanding the physiological responses is key to providing patrons an unforgettable, thrilling experience.

“One aspect of many of the recent and prominently technological changes is a vast array of unintended consequences that the designers never anticipated. Unintended consequences frequently overshadow the anticipated benefits designers of a new technology had in mind. While many unintended consequences may have tremendous positive impacts on society, others may not. Ethical considerations must be included in every step of the design, documentation and deployment process to help anticipate and mitigate negative consequences.”

Dr. Marcy and Rathbun’s insightful essay examines how to assist engineers facing ethical dilemmas. It proposes addressing the three fundamental issues regarding engineering ethics – namely engineering ethics education, ethical decision making in professional practice, and protecting the rights of engineers to make such decisions.

Essay Prompts About Engineering

It can be a challenge to think of ideas and questions when writing an essay, especially if the subject revolves on something as technical as engineering. Here are five essay topics about engineering that might be able to help you out.

At present, there are up to 21 types of engineers that’s making a difference in the world we live in. From biochemical engineers to software engineers, this essay topic can discuss each branch and tackle their area of expertise as well as the groundbreaking innovations they’ve provided over the last few years. If you can’t investigate all, you can prompt to choose one type and focus your research on there.

Looking for more suggestions? Check out our essays about technology for your next project.

As mentioned, all types of engineers are working day in and day out to improve our way of living. With 21 types of engineers to choose from, you can choose which branch will impact your or your family’s future. For instance, if you’re an environmentally-conscious individual, you can home in on the research done by environmental engineers. Alternatively, you can focus on picturing what the next high-rise buildings will look like or what are the medical advancements 10 or 20 years from now.

This can be a range of different things. It can be an essay topic on how easy or difficult acquiring an engineering degree can be based on personal experience. It can be about how to inspire your kids to become future engineers by piquing their interest in infrastructures, space exploration, and even video games in a way that they will understand.

Technological advancements have their ups and downs. We won’t be able to see it at first, but a crack in its foundation will show after years of usage. An investigative essay showing an innovation’s advantages and disadvantages might reveal the next scientific discovery of the century that will change the world’s future.

Consider writing a short essay about the merits of the engineering profession. These types of essays are good because they help aspiring engineers and students figure out if they want to work in this career path. It also encourages to writer to either reflect on their experiences or consult more knowledgeable experts. 

Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

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Engineering Essay | Essay on Engineering for Students and Children in English

February 13, 2024 by Prasanna

Engineering Essay:  The discipline that applies scientific principles to design, develop and operate structures, machines, apparatus, and other things like roads, bridges, vehicles, buildings, etc., is called Engineering.

The Latin word ‘ingenium,’ which means cleverness, is the origin of the name ‘engineering,’ and the ‘engineer’ is derived from the word ‘ingeniare’ (Latin), which means ‘to contrive and devise.’

You can also find more  Essay Writing  articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Engineering for Students and Kids in English

We are providing students with a sample of a long essay of 500 words and a sample of a short essay of 15 words in English for reference.

Long Essay on Engineering 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Engineering is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

In the 21st if we are to look around in our society, we will see most of it displays several marvels of engineering, which shows why it is an important discipline. The field of engineering consists of a vast sea of knowledge whose boundary is infinite. And through the discoveries and breakthroughs made by engineers almost every day, the expertise and information keep growing.

Society has given engineers various nicknames like problem solvers, organizers, designers, human calculators, and communicators because of the highly creative activities. The most amusing fact about the engineering discipline is that the evidence of its applications dates back to the ancient stone ages. The discoveries made in those primitive days were like the invention of wheels, carts, the building of huts, pulleys, etc.

There has been a significant role in engineering since when human civilization had started. The evidence from ancient Harappa and Mohenjodaro civilizations show that it had a planned layout of the street grids along with equal-sized buildings, structural city division for commercial purposes, well-planned drainage system, etc., which are all considered to be very advanced civil engineering activities for the period of the civilization.

As we proceed further down the timeline, we have witnessed several other civil engineering wonders like the great pyramids, Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, etc. Engineers from places like Japan, where earthquakes are common, found a way to withstand natural disasters by building shock-proof structures, and such inventions have saved a million lives. Ancient Greeks made machines for civilians, military, and as well as commercial purposes.

Transportation is another great wonder in the contributions of engineering made to humankind. Using transportation devices, we have voyaged into outer space and reached the moon as well. And vehicles are such inventions which have certainly made the commute a whole lot easier.

Earlier, the engineering field only consisted of core branches that specialized in individual departments of work, and the divisions were Mechanical, Electrical, and Civil. But eventually, with much more advanced and discoveries in the field of technology and a combination of engineering with other areas of study, some more branches of course under the engineering field became popular. Among them, a few Engineering branches to name are Computer, Aerospace, IT, Electronics and Communication, Electronics and Instrumentation, Biomedical, Chemical, Textile, Petroleum, Food Technology, etc.

In an age where society is highly dependent on technology, especially on electronic devices and the internet, a modern-day software engineer is expected to be tech-savvy and able to solve a range of various problems related to commuting programs. They are also likely to help verify designs and predict structures/devices’ behavior in different environments.

The main objective of engineers and engineering is to benefit humankind by making life and living easier. The contributions of engineering cannot be summed up into a few words. Still, the right way to respect their immense role in society is by recognizing and using their inventions responsibly. Engineering always has and will continue to strive to lift our living standards through sustainable developments and considering conditions to protect our Earth’s environment at all costs.

Short Essay on Engineering 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Engineering is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The world filled with human-made machines, structures, and devices was potent enough to raise a curiosity in the little mind of mine when I was a child. I often wondered and questioned the procedures behind how the machines operated.

To be the inventions and discoveries made by man in the field of engineering felt majestic. And if I didn’t get logical answers to my doubts, I could have easily mistaken the wonders of engineering to be established using magical spells. Even though I have come a long way in life, I still believe engineers are nothing less than magicians, for they are who have or can give you a solution for almost every problem. One should take a glimpse around them in a room and outside I can assure you will find very few things not relying to a certain degree of engineering upon, which makes this field of study so remarkable.

10 Lines on Engineering in English

• Imhotep is said to be the first known engineer of the world who is believed to have built the Step Pyramid in Egypt around 2550BC.
• The first female to get a degree in engineering was Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu.
• The first engineer in India was Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, who was recruited by the government to be the Assistant Engineer in the department of public works in Bombay.
• There are several branches of engineering like the core branches (Mechanical, Civil, Electrical), the computer branches (Software, IT, CE), and then there are specialization branches (Aerospace, AEIE, Robotics, Biomedical, etc.).
• As per the oldest inventions and applications, it was deduced that civil is the oldest branch of engineering that prevailed even in the Stone Age.
• Engineering is a discipline required in many fields of work like media, sports, healthcare, films, music, entertainment, etc.
• With the Government Technological Institute, the engineering discipline was started to be taught in India in 1921.
• Engineers believe in solving problems most effectively and simply.
• A great example for an engineer and inventor is Nikola Tesla, whose contributions to society through his discoveries were immense.
• In today’s world, one can find several marvels of engineering if they look around.

FAQ’s on Engineering Essay

Question 1. Name the person called the father of computer science.

Answer:  Charles Babbage.

Question 2.  Name some computer programming languages.

Answer:  C, C++, Java, Python, etc.

Question 3.  Which city In India is given the name ‘Silicon city’?

Answer:  Bengaluru is the center of India’s high-tech industry and is also known as silicon city.

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32 Best Topics For An Engineering Essay

If a regular college student was told to come up with a list of the most difficult academic disciplines to deal with, we bet that engineering would be deservedly mentioned. Yes, this discipline is quite challenging to get around, which is especially true of home assignments in engineering so some students are forced to ask someone to  write my essay . This delicate problem often prompts some students to apply for help to online services, asking, “ do my engineering homework .” But it’s not only homework assignments in engineering that give college kids a hard time – another big burden connected with this discipline is academic writing.

In engineering paper writing, the first and most exasperating obstacle is settling on the topic. At first sight, choosing a paper topic seems to be quite easy. In reality, given the complexity of the discipline, developing a topic for an engineering discipline is a rigorous process. For this reason, we decided to put pen to paper and provide you with the greatest engineering essay topics!

Software Engineering Essay Topics

• The rapid evolution of neural networks
• Computer-assisted education as an innovative solution to the traditional academic system
• The implementation of machine learning in today’s digital industry
• The risks of using virus-infected computer software
• Virtual reality and human perception
• AI in modern digital marketing
• The challenges of database management
• The interactions between humans and machines
• The problem of ethical hacking today
• The development of biometric systems for computers

Biomedical Engineering Essay Topics

• The critical importance of modeling diseases through engineering
• The ways of improving medical imaging methods
• The outlook for structural health monitoring
• Genetic engineering as one of the most popular fields of biomedical engineering
• The use of biomedical engineering in handling the COVID-19 situation
• Biorobotics in disease detection
• The authentication systems based on biorobotics
• The treatment of cardiac diseases with the help of biomedical engineering

Structural Engineering Essay Topics

• The use of software in modeling experiments
• How to study the vulnerability of a particular area
• Self-healing: core principles
• The utilization of probabilistic methods in structural engineering

Mechanical Engineering Essay Topics

• Marine shipping and air pollution
• The history of mechanical engineering
• Parallel kinematic machines
• Manufacturing systems: performance analysis
• Electricity production mechanisms used at nuclear power plants
• The technology of solid-liquid separation
• The mechanical engineering of the smart auto-reeling mechanism
• Perpetual motion machines: the outlook
• The implementation of oil depletion
• The use of mechanical engineering in metallurgy

Engineering Writing Is Easy!

Developed by our top engineering specialists, these longed-for paper topics are for all students who fail to develop a good idea for their engineering papers. As you can now see, creating a solid engineering paper topic is not as big a deal as some college students believe it to be. Equipped with these 32 brilliant paper topics, you no longer have to torment yourself with the tedious procedure of seeking inspiration for your academic paper. Make sure to select the best topic from our top list developed by the leading experts in engineering!

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February 16, 2022

Working in the Penumbra of Understanding

By William S. Hammack , John L. Anderson

A twenty-first century science and technology policy that works to solve society’s problems must fully incorporate engineering’s unique perspective.

A discussion of

At their core, science and engineering have different goals and thus different methods. As Theodore von Kármán , an engineer who received the first National Medal of Science in 1962, put it, “Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been.” Engineers solve problems by creating artifacts or systems, often before scientific understanding is available and before the public has identified a need. And the practice of engineering is defined by process, not by one’s field of study.

Understanding and enhancing engineering’s unique process have become vitally important as the nation seeks to reimagine science and technology policy to solve important problems and drive economic competitiveness for the future. The recognition of engineering’s distinctive processes should of course be integral to the planning of big initiatives like infrastructure investment, but it must also be brought to bear on the proposed new directorate at the National Science Foundation . We argue that, to understand what innovation means and how it can be harnessed for national goals, it is crucial to understand engineering’s perspective.

Distinguishing the scientific and the engineering methods

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the engineer’s perspective is the way knowledge is applied in practice. The method used by engineers to create artifacts and systems—from cellular telephony, computers and smartphones, and GPS to remote controls, airplanes, and biomimetic materials and devices—isn’t the same method scientists use in their work. The scientific method has a prescribed process: state a question, observe, state a hypothesis, test, analyze, and interpret. It doesn’t know what will be discovered, what truth will be revealed. In contrast, the engineering method aims for a specific goal and cannot be reduced to a set of fixed steps that must be followed. In fact, its power lies exactly in that there is no “must.” As mechanical engineer Billy Vaughn Koen has said , “The engineering method is the use of heuristics to cause the best change in a poorly understood situation within the available resources.”

The engineering method aims for a specific goal and cannot be reduced to a set of fixed steps that must be followed. In fact, its power lies exactly in that there is no “must.”

A heuristic, or rule of thumb, is an imprecise method used as a shortcut to find the solution to a problem. The idea is so old and pervasive that practically every language seems to have its own corresponding term: while in English we speak of the thumb, in French it is the nose, in German the fist, in Japanese “measuring with the eye,” and in Russian “by the fingers.” In practice, it’s anything that can plausibly aid the solution of a problem but is not justified from a scientific or philosophical perspective, either because it doesn’t need to be or because it can’t be justified through anything other than results. The specialized skill, the defining trait, and the great creativity of engineering all lie in finding the correct strategy to reach a goal—selecting among and combining the heuristics that will lead to a solution, regardless of whether a deep scientific understanding exists.

One obstacle to leveraging this unique perspective in service of national science and technology policy is the popular notion that science discovers, while engineering applies. This perception—which, among other things, can lead to funding being directed to headline-worthy “breakthroughs” rather than toward real innovation—was aptly caricatured by Walter Vincenti in 1990. “Modern engineers,” he said, “are seen as taking over their knowledge from scientists and, by some occasionally dramatic but probably intellectually uninteresting process, using this to fashion material artifacts.” This traditional “linear model” of the relationship between science and engineering—popularized by Vannevar Bush’s postwar manifesto, Science, the Endless Frontier (1945), the foundational document for federal funding of basic research—suggests that engineering is simply applied science. In this view, someone else observes and explains a phenomenon before an engineer uses it to create something.

But the truth is that engineering often precedes science. The nineteenth century provides a wealth of examples. Scientific observations in this period eventually led to a new scientific understanding of the world, from chemistry and medicine to electromagnetics and quantum physics. But before this new knowledge crystallized, engineers used principles from these subjects to change the world, as illustrated in a few examples. Chemists synthesized long rubbery molecules, but as they puzzled about the nature of those particles, Hilaire Bernigaud spun miles and miles of “Chardonnet silk”—the first synthetic fiber, better known as rayon. Similarly, scientists discovered that a current passed through cables could control a magnetic needle, a baffling phenomenon intractable to the theories of the time, while engineers built vast telegraphic systems under the ocean. And in 1873 Willoughby Smith observed photoconductivity in selenium while working on submarine cables. The phenomenon mystified physicists, but an engineer used the photoconductivity of glassy selenium to create a photocopier in 1938—some 30 years before scientists fully understood it in amorphous materials.

As these examples illustrate, to view engineering as applied science is to conflate the tool with the method. One might think that as science has progressed beyond the nineteenth century, it has steamrolled all uncertainty and replaced engineering’s heuristics with firm calculations from first principles. In fact, nothing of the sort happens, because as scientific knowledge advances, engineering goes beyond that knowledge. The relationship between science and engineering is therefore complementary, synergistic, and essential. Scientific practice and knowledge offer engineers gold-plated, grade A heuristics that work better than those based merely on observation or long periods of trial and error; but this scientific knowledge does not explain how to design or create an artifact or a system. Scientists, in turn, use the products of engineering to investigate and discover.  

Engineering’s goal orientation

Another distinctive feature of the engineering perspective is its focus on achieving particular goals. This orientation is exemplified in the invention and development of the cell phone. In Cutting the Cord , Martin Cooper lays out the vision he and his Motorola colleagues had that went beyond the science and technology of the time: that any person could talk directly to any other person anywhere in the world using a handheld device. Many technical barriers presented themselves, including limited basic scientific understanding of electromagnetic wave propagation in the Earth’s atmosphere, lack of a built environment and of cellular networks with multiple users, and lack of the high-density integrated circuitry needed to miniaturize the phones themselves. But the Motorola team was not deterred by these challenges; they developed both the scientific understanding and the electronic components needed to produce the first prototype handheld device (the DynaTAC), with which Cooper made the first cellular call on April 3, 1973. Had these engineers waited for the relevant science to be known and the miniaturized integrated circuits to be developed, the emergence of cell phones and their descendant smartphones would have been delayed many decades.

As scientific knowledge advances, engineering goes beyond that knowledge. The relationship between science and engineering is therefore complementary, synergistic, and essential.

Another example of the goal orientation of engineering can be found in a cutting-edge and still-evolving science of the last 50 years: molecular biology. Deciphering the code of life embedded in DNA opened a deep and rich mine of knowledge about how organisms work. As understanding deepened, scientists became interested in customizing enzymes, nature’s catalysts, to tackle tasks beyond those assigned by nature. But complexity stymied progress: an enzyme is composed of roughly 500 amino acids, and there are about 20 different amino acids, which means there are 20 500 possible combinations of amino acids of enzyme length—a mind-bogglingly large number, well beyond the number of atoms in the universe. While efforts to find new and useful combinations among the astronomical possibilities baffled scientists, Frances Arnold, a chemical engineer, created enzymes that reduce the environmental costs of producing fuels, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals.

Arnold determined that she needed enzymes that work under the conditions of an industrial process rather than those of their natural environments. To create these new enzymes, she pioneered the method of “directed evolution,” which does not require a fundamental understanding of how the amino acid sequence encodes an enzyme’s function. Her first engineered enzyme was synthetically evolved from a member of the group that enables humans to digest milk. These enzymes work well in the water-rich liquids of the small intestine, but when Arnold put them in an organic solvent called dimethylformamide (similar to paint stripper), they no longer “digested” milk proteins. To solve this problem, Arnold simulated evolution by creating mutated versions of the enzyme, changing an amino acid or two, and then testing their function. Most of these modified enzymes failed to digest the milk protein, but a few managed to succeed, at least partially. She selected the best new enzyme, created mutated versions of it, and tested again. After ten rounds of mutations and selection in increasingly higher concentrations of the solvent, she engineered an enzyme that worked in a harsh chemical environment almost as well as the original did in water.

Arnold’s idea of directed evolution met resistance from scientists, who protested that her work wasn’t science because it didn’t contribute to the understanding of protein function. She responded that her goal was the engineer’s guiding principle of “getting useful results quickly.” When she accepted the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for this work, she elegantly stated a key attribute of engineering practice: “A wonderful feature of engineering by evolution is that solutions come first; an understanding of the solutions may or may not come later.” That deep understanding of enzymes has yet to arrive: “even today,” she notes, “we struggle to explain” how her evolved enzymes work. This is a clear reminder that as knowledge about the universe expands, an engineer will always be out front working in the penumbra of understanding, where advances move the borderline between certainty and uncertainty.

“A wonderful feature of engineering by evolution is that solutions come first; an understanding of the solutions may or may not come later.”

To work at the margins of solvable problems and step beyond current scientific knowledge is the raison d’être of engineering. To design something useful without complete scientific understanding signals that an engineer is at work. Engineers often don’t wait until scientists thoroughly understand a phenomenon because the public cannot wait for science. In the absence of complete information, engineers for centuries have created structures, devices, and systems that revolutionized the world—ocean-crossing airplanes, lifesaving medicine, glass and steel towers, lithium-powered cell phones, cellular networks, and spacecraft journeying outside our solar system. All these and more were created by the most powerful problem-solving method available to humans: the engineering method.

Facilitating better connections between science, engineering, and technology will require making these aspects of engineering more evident both to the public and to policymakers. One reason they are not well appreciated is that engineering has been so successful. The hallmark of good engineering, after all, is often its invisibility: the public simply takes for granted that airplanes fly, furnaces and computer networks work, vaccines are safe, and buildings stay up. Another reason is that the linear model remains the prevailing mindset of most academic research. Venkatesh Narayanamurti has recently pointed out the ways this picture is “faulty,” calling for the linear model to be replaced by a “combination of the scientific and engineering methods,” with “neither leading but each strengthening the other.”

Incorporating this expanded sense of nonlinear innovation with the knowledge that every engineering solution is unique can be the basis for a vision of science policy that nimbly adapts to solve society’s greatest problems. The engineering method aims for a specific goal—an airplane, a computer, a cathedral—but it has no prescribed process and so there is rarely a tidy, orderly, and complete explanation of an engineered solution. A policy model that assigns funding to specific institutions or facilities may miss the uniquely creative tools that engineering brings to bear. The engineering method is best described as an attitude or approach, or even a philosophy of creating a solution to a problem; the same person can act as a scientist and an engineer on the same day.

The murky meaning of “technology”

A final obstacle to leveraging the unique perspective of engineering, as Anna Harrison has noted , is that the word “technology” often subsumes and obscures the work of engineers. In fact, technology is the result of methods from both engineering and science as well as from business.

The hallmark of good engineering, after all, is often its invisibility: the public simply takes for granted that airplanes fly, furnaces and computer networks work, vaccines are safe, and buildings stay up.

The historian Leo Marx has illuminated how the word blurs distinctions and nuance. What exactly do we mean by “railway technology,” for example? We might mean the ancillary equipment—yards, bridges, tunnels, viaducts, signals, and miles of track—or the business office representing a large capital investment, or the specialized knowledge necessary to create the trains, rails, and telegraphs, or the institutional laws that mandate the gauge of the tracks or set standardized time zones. “When invoked on this plane of generality,” Marx concluded, “the concept of technology … is almost completely vacuous.”

The same might be said for the phrase “science and technology.” A poor understanding of the unique engineering perspective generates unrealistic expectations of “science and technology” and risks a loss of faith in the whole science-engineering-technology enterprise. It can also insulate engineering choices from public scrutiny and understanding and thus lead to products and systems that do not serve the full population. Artificial intelligence researchers Safiya Umoja Noble and Kate Crawford have shown how, in the absence of input from the social sciences, search engines can reflect embedded biases. As Noble explains, “We need people designing technologies for society to have training and an education on the histories of marginalized people, at a minimum, and we need them working alongside people with rigorous training and preparation from the social sciences and humanities.” The social sciences are desperately needed to inform both scientists and engineers in order to avoid unintended consequences of their discoveries and creations—and to point them in the direction of social benefit.

Engineering’s value and future

A policy model that assigns funding to specific institutions or facilities may miss the uniquely creative tools that engineering brings to bear.

For all these reasons, national policy must take much greater heed of what engineering has to offer, as both a distinctive method and a central component of innovation. Conceiving of engineering simply as applied science distorts the synergistic relationship of scientific knowledge and engineering practice, implying that engineers must wait for science to lead the way. In reality, engineering responds to wants and needs, not simply to the discoveries of scientists, and it often works at the cutting edge in a way basic scientists can’t—leading the way well before scientific understanding catches up. A distorted view of engineering also works to obscure what makes the field so exciting and creative, which might dissuade the best and brightest from pursuing an engineering career and thus rob society of the next generation of creative innovators—engineers who are needed to confront local and global challenges such as mitigation of climate change, control of pandemics, avoidance of famine, and other yet-unknown needs. Any science policy for the next century must ensure that we continue to foster engineers who, as von Kármán put it, will “ create the world that never has been.”

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The Difference Between Science and Engineering

Elon Musk weighs in on who’s better: scientists or engineers.

If you’re reading these words on ENGINEERING.com, there’s a good chance you’re an engineer or engineer-to-be. If so, welcome!

But not all readers are engineers, so let’s take a moment to welcome our friends from the science department. Welcome physicists! Welcome chemists! Welcome biologists! And welcome to the rest of the lab coats, star-gazers and hypothesizers out there.

Now that we’re all here, I thought it might be fun to talk about what sets us apart. What’s the difference between scientists and engineers? For that matter, what’s the difference between science and engineering?

Any takers? No? Okay, I’ll start.

Origins of Science and Engineering

The best place to start any discussion is at the beginning, so let’s turn back the clock of human history to see if we can pinpoint when science and engineering began.

Who was the first engineer? The farthest back we can go is about 2600 BCE, where we find Imhotep, chancellor to the Egyptian pharaoh Djoser. Imhotep is credited with designing the first Egyptian pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser. It may not be much by today’s standards, but the 62-meter (203-foot) tall structure was revolutionary at the time.

The first scientist is a bit trickier to put a name to, but one of the strongest contenders appeared much later than Imhotep on the human timeline: Ibn al-Haytham, born 960 AD in what is now Iraq. Ibn al-Haytham used an early form of the scientific method to make discoveries in optics and astronomy centuries before the European Renaissance, arguably making him the world’s first theoretical physicist .

It would seem, then, that engineers have been around for quite a bit longer than scientists. This offers a pretty big clue as to what differentiates the two domains, and we’ll return to it in a moment. But first, let’s figure out why we can say Imhotep was an engineer and Ibn al-Haytham was a scientist, even though neither of those terms existed at the time.

Why is Imhotep recognizable as an engineer? Well, the only real answer is that he built something, a pyramid that persists to this day. What’s more, he built it for a practical purpose—namely, to house the body of dearly departed Djoser. From Imhotep through to our present day, engineers have been characterized as focusing on the tangible and the practical.

The case for Ibn al-Haytham being a scientist is slightly more subtle: he was a scientist because he utilized the scientific method . This method is what makes science so powerful, imbuing it with rigor and authority. The scientific method doesn’t itself provide any answers, but it does provide something much better: the key to getting the answers.

Give a man a scientific fact, he’ll learn for a day; teach a man the scientific method, he’ll learn for a lifetime.

What Drives Scientists and Engineers?

Now the difference between scientists and engineers is starting to take shape—it seems like it comes down to motive. Engineers do what they do because they want to solve some real-world problem:

• P roblem : The pharaoh needs a majestic place to store his bones and trinkets.
• S olution : Build a huge pyramidal tomb out of limestone.

In contrast, what drives scientists is the pursuit of knowledge itself. Scientists continuously ask “How does the universe work?” and then apply the scientific method to refine their answers.

One insight that we gain from the first engineer Imhotep and the first scientist Ibn al-Haytham being separated by about 4,000 years is that, clearly, science is not necessary for engineering. Imhotep must have had some knowledge of nature’s workings in order to build the Pyramid of Djoser, but he didn’t require any rigorous scientific theories to do so.

It’s kind of like building a sandcastle: even young children can intuit how to make one stand, even though they don’t know the first thing about how gravity works or how sand is formed. In the same way, engineers can often achieve their goal (finding a solution to a practical problem) even without knowing the relevant science.

Well, not quite.

While Imhotep may have been able to get away with it, engineers today have to be pretty well-versed in science to do their jobs effectively. This is because the more complicated your engineering problem, the more tools you’ll need to use in order to solve it. And the most important tool in any engineer’s belt is—what else?—science.

This makes perfect sense, of course. My goal as an engineer is to solve some practical problem, that is, some problem situated in the natural world. To do that, it sure would be nice to know how the natural world works. And this is exactly what science aims to tell us!

So, to an engineer, science provides a kind of guide for nature. By reading this guide, engineers can get to know the pieces that they’re playing with, how they fit together, and how to exploit them to solve engineering problems.

Science vs Engineering – Which is Better?

“at its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. it is a noble profession.”, -queen elizabeth ii, “science is about knowing, engineering is about doing.”, -henry petroski.

The two quotations given above (both taken from our Top 10 Engineering Quotes ) succinctly sum up the difference between science and engineering. They reinforce the idea that science is a tool of engineering, but science and engineering each have their own distinct goals. Science aims to know; engineering aims to do.

Naturally, there’s a lot of overlap between scientists and engineers. Since engineers use science as their primary tool, they often contribute to scientific knowledge in the process. Scientists, too, often have occasion to engineer: designing a scientific experiment, for example, is certainly an engineering project ( Problem : Figure out what happened at the beginning of the universe; Solution : build an enormous particle accelerator ).

Because of this overlap, there’s a lot of fluidity between science and engineering. It’s really not a binary distinction, and despite our human taste for tribalism, many people could accurately call themselves both a scientist and an engineer. Furthermore, the domains are mutually supporting; scientific advancements beget engineering advancements beget scientific advancements, and so on.

So, which is better: science or engineering?

A lot of people from both camps have their own opinions about this. For example, engineering superstar Elon Musk doesn’t hesitate to pick engineering over science, despite his educational background in physics.

Bernard Charles, the CEO of Dassault Systèmes, holds a PhD in mechanical engineering, but is nonetheless pushing his company more and more into the realm of science.

In light of what we’ve seen, though, the question of which domain is better—engineering or science—is ultimately misguided, since neither discipline can function without the other. Science and engineering are both necessary for driving technological advancements in our society.

So, if you’re a student choosing between a degree in engineering or a degree in science, don’t fret that you’ll lock yourself in one way or the other—the skills that you’ll pick up in either case will serve you well, whether you want to solve real-world problems or answer deep questions about the universe… or both!

Scientists and Engineers – A Winning Combination

At the end of the day, scientists and engineers both play a vital role in human progress, and the gap between them isn’t as wide as it seems. Really, it comes down to whether you’re driven to learn everything you can about a topic, or learn just enough so that you can do something practical with your knowledge (and remember: the two aren’t mutually exclusive).

Are you a tinkerer who likes tearing things apart and putting them back together? Engineering might be for you.

Do you gaze up at the stars and yearn to know exactly what makes them shine so bright? Sounds like a scientist.

Of course, every engineer and every scientist has their own opinion about this topic. 

So, what do you think? What differentiates science and engineering, and which is more important?

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Michael Alba

Michael is a senior editor at engineering.com. He covers computer hardware, design software, electronics, and more. Michael holds a degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Alberta.

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — Engineering — The Importance of Studying Engineering in Today’s World

The Importance of Studying Engineering in Today's World

• Categories: Engineering

About this sample

Words: 555 |

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 555 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Personal interest in problem-solving, desire for innovation and impact, passion for continuous learning and intellectual stimulation, career prospects and opportunities.

• Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Engineers." U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2020-21 Edition.
• MIT News. "The most important skills of the future, according to five global leaders." MIT News, 11 Sep 2020.
• Monsma, Karl. "Why study engineering? Here’s 5 reasons." Engineers Australia, 28 Mar 2017.
• Solloway, Ethan. "The exciting future of 10 top careers in engineering." Fast Company, 4 Aug 2016.

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