Engineers don’t make things

When I was little, I was fascinated by all things Science Fiction.  I wanted to be a chief engineer on a starship and explore space.  I practiced swordplay so someday I could earn myself a light-saber.  Every fantasy involved space ships and advanced technology.  

Then I learned it was all fake.  Make-believe.  Just stories.

My world crashed.  What would I do if none of the things I wanted to be was an option?

I would make them, of course.  Instead of being the chief engineer of a big starship, I would work on faster than light technology.  I could design crystalline structures to make a powerful laser have a finite length, or create hover technology so we could have hoverboards.

I would be an engineer!  And since most of what I wanted took place in space, I would be an Aerospace Engineer!

…Only, engineering doesn’t work like that.  At the end of my sophomore year in college, I found out I could do none of the things I wanted with my engineering degree.

No one had ever taken the time to explain what the different levels of empirical science actually work on outside of academia or what problems you can solve with them.  If I had had this information, I would have saved close to $20,000 on two years of an engineering degree that did not open the doors I wanted.

What exactly do engineers do?

Society loves to think of engineers as being Tony Starks.  Some guy (or a group of guys) in the basement finding new technologies and making awesome things.

But that isn’t what engineers do at all.

Engineers don’t make new technologies or design new principles to found technologies on, they take existing technologies and make new and interesting things with them.

Think of it this way: an engineer is someone who takes the Legos and builds anything they can imagine with them– but they don’t design new Legos bricks.  

If you could go out right now and buy parts for the problems you want to solve, or you want to solve problems in a way they could hit the shelves of a store right now, you want to be an engineer.

So if you want to make the next space plane or design the world’s largest bridge, be an engineer.  If you want to design something off an unproven principle (like a warp drive), keep reading.

Physicists play with the universe they can see, not the universe they want

Okay, so you are the kid who wants to work on the cutting edge.  Physics looks appealing because new things seem to continuously come out of the field.

Unfortunately, there really isn’t much that is actually new in physics because physicists generally deal with the world they can see and empirically measure.

Wait a second, you say, wasn’t Albert Einstein a physicist?  Didn’t he come up with all that new relativity stuff?  Wasn’t that all new?

I hear you… but Einstein was a mathematician, not a physicist.  

Let’s go back to Tony Stark.  In the first Iron Man movie, he creates an arc reactor that can fit in the palm of his hand, but the arc reactor technology already exists.  He knows the arc reactor should work, so he redoes the math, runs an experiment, and winds up with an arc reactor that is actually usable.

That is physics.  Working on science you can see, touch, and prove.  Creating components and principles engineers will hopefully use one day.

Physics does not deal with pure theory.  Even theoretical physics deals with experiments the physicist hopes will one day be performed.  

If you are looking to create something your children will turn into something cool, this is the place to be.  To come up with something truly new, you need

Math, or the ability to dissect the universe and create the universe you want.

When Albert Einstein wrote the theory of relativity, he had no idea what it might be used for.  He found a mathematical curiosity and studied it until he decided he had enough to publish.

Today we use it to run GPS, communicate with satellites, and run navigation systems in all manner of vehicles.  While Einstein may have thought of some of the applications of his discovery, I am certain he could not conceive of everything his discovery would be used for.

It is possible that the seeds of desktop fusion and faster than light travel already exist in some mathematician’s notebook, waiting for a theoretical physicist to see them and design an experiment that will pique the interest of an engineer and become something cool.

If you want to design or discover something that will be actively used a hundred years from now– like faster than light travel– you probably want to be a mathematician.

The Math-Physics-Engineering spectrum is actually a spectrum.

Maybe you see yourself as a pure engineer.  Maybe you want to be the next Tony Stark or Albert Einstein.  

Think about what you want to do in life, what problems you want to solve, and use that to figure out your major.  Remember that it doesn’t have to only be one major either.

I double-majored in Physics and Aerospace Engineering, but given the problems I want to work on, I should have double-majored in Math and Physics with a minor in Aerospace Engineering.  If I had done that, I would have still been able to work as an Aerospace Engineer, but I would have also been qualified to do the more empirical research I am interested in.

Tony Stark has degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering.  Makes sense, right?  He develops new physics principles that he can use to make new and interesting things, and Electrical Engineering is directly used every time he makes robots.

You can, and probably should, double major if you are looking to solve problems that straddle two principles.  The hard sciences are so entwined it won’t add much time to your degree if you plan for it early.  

Still stuck?

Feel free to schedule a 15-minute Zoom call and I can help you plan your major.  You can follow me on Instagram and Facebook, and check out the Youtube channel if you need homework help.