The pride, passion, and joy of engineering

The Pride, Passion, and Joy of Engineering:Engineering, Emotions & Mr. Spock
David E. Goldberg
Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignUrbana, Illinois 61801
deg@illinois.edu
 David E. Goldberg. All Rights Reserved.

The Joy of Engineering
Some may find use of terms “joy” and “engineering” together unusual.
I am an unapologetic engineering chauvinist.
Engineering is a great education & profession:
License to think about almost anything.
License to do and change the world.
License to organize and be organized.
Briefly explore joy, pride & passion in engineering.

Roadmap
Engineering: Liberal arts education for 21st century.
HAPI theme probe.
Pride: Engineering’s unsung role in founding of science & business.
Passion: Emotion as a source of values and judgment.
Time flyers: What activities make time fly for you?

Liberal Arts for the 21st Century
Liberal arts majors view engineering education as narrow.
Centroid of knowledge has changed.
Can 21st century educated person avoid
Science?
Mathematics?
Computers?
Engineering builds on broad base across spectrum of human endeavor.
Dilbert (b. 1989)

Closer to the Truth
Without tech in 21st century, not even qualified to be criminal.

Engineering Pride
Engineering is marvelous education and profession.
Yet, engineers get wedged between science and business.
Scientists: Engineering is just applied science.
Businessman: Engineers just technicians to do bidding of capitalists.
Historically inaccurate.

HAPI Theme Probe
Discuss your HAPI themes.
18 hours of social science & humanities.
What do you want to do with those hours?
Do you want to broaden?
Do you want to connect to your engineering goals?
Do you want to learn about other cultures?
Discussion.

Bacon and Science’s Little Secret
Observe also, that if sciences of this kind had any life in them, that could never have come to pass which has been the case now for many ages—that they stand almost at a stay…
Francis Bacon
1561-1626

Engineering to the Rescue
Still more Bacon:
In the mechanical arts we do not find it so: they, on the contrary, as having in them some breath of life, are continually growing and becoming more perfect. As originally invented they are commonly rude, clumsy, and shapeless; afterwards they acquire new powers and more commodious arrangements and constructions;… Philosophy and the intellectual sciences, on the contrary, stand like statues.

Oops! Science from Engineering
We’ve got it backwards.
Father of science, Bacon: Science must learn from mechanical arts.
Engineering is not just applied science.
More accurate & equally haughty: Science is just engineering applied to the invention of concepts.
Over the years, there has been historical inversion.
Not the first time engineering inspired thought: Greeks inspired by engineers, too.

Who Invented Business?
A. D. Chandler (1977): Of the new forms of transportation the railroads were the most numerous, their activities the most complex, and their influence the most pervasive. They were the pioneers in the management of modern business enterprise.

Who Were These Pioneers?
The men who managed these enterprises became the first group of modern business administrators in the United States… The men who face these challenges were a new type of businessman.… The pioneers of modern management…were all trained civil engineers with experience in railroad construction and bridge building before they took over the management of the roads.
A. D. Chandler (1918-2007)

Business from Engineers, too!
Another historical inversion.
Modern business is an engineering invention.
Engineering is not just a capitalist tool.
More accurate: Business is just application of engineering principlesto commerce.

From Pride to Passion
Wish you were emotionless like Mr. Spock of StarTrek?
Really smart guy.
Could reason like a charm and play 3-D chess.
What was his weakness?

Myth of the Passions
Emotions-passion something to be avoided or minimized: Stoics to rationalists.
Passions as something that happens to us.
Hydraulic metaphor: Have emotional energy, and it gets bottled up, then explodes.
Maybe this works for anger, but what about love?
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Common View
In certain persons, the explosive energy with which passion manifests itself on critical occasions seems correlated with the way in which they bottle it up… William James
William James (1842-1910)

Emotions: What Are They?
If emotions are not things that happen to us, what are they?
Emotions are intentional: Oriented at objects.
Emotions are judgments.
Maintain personal dignity and self-esteem.

Aside on the Joy of Learning
Where can you learn this non-engineering stuff?
Passionate pursuit of reading.
Big fan of the Teaching Company for ~15 years.
www.teach12.com
Pick top teaching professors on their favorite subjects.
Buy on sale (discounts around 70%!!!).
Mother of all courses: Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition (84, 30-minute lectures).
This material: Robert Solomon, Passions: Philosophy & the Intelligence of Emotions.

Mr. Spock Revisited
Wish you were emotionless like Mr. Spock of StarTrek?
Think again.
Captain Kirk was the better strategic thinker for a reason.
Spock had trouble making judgments.
Emotionlessness left him unable to judge.

Emotion & Judgment Interlaced
Your emotions are the source of your ability to choose.
They are the wellspring of your values.
They are interlaced with your reflective mind.
Don’t want emotions run amok, but don’t deny their importance.

Passions in Practice
Make career choices for things you enjoy passionately.
The Test: Time flies when you are having fun.
What things make time fly for you?
Match time flyers to your career choices.
Create vocational impedance match.
Research says you’ll be more successful and happier, too.
Take signature strength’s test.
http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires.aspx

Time Flyers Exercise
Take out piece of paper.
What makes time fly for you?
3 things.
Are there ways to incorporate time flyers into your work?
Can you be creative: (1) interpret or generalize time flyer and (2) consider areas where shifted TF might be in plentiful work.

Bottom Line
Engineering a balanced education and creative profession.
Can take pride in engineering’s forgotten role in creation of science and business.
Can be more successful if we follow our passions in vocational impedance match.

The pride, passion, and joy of engineering

by David E. Goldberg on Oct 28, 2009

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