Engineering as a Profession

The biggest barrier to Britain getting ahead is our class based caste system for education

Private schools give our politicians and ruling classes the chance to cop out of the state education system and let it all go to hell (which it is)

I would do a dissolution of the monastries job on Britains private school system, that would give our upper echelons a direct interest in the proper development of UK education

No-one who has been privately educated from that date onwards, can ever enter UK politics nor any government department

When I left school in 1973, the majority of jobs were going into the clerical / scientific areas, with only half a dozen of us going into the 'engineering' trades.

Some went into the Dockyard as Fitter / Turners, some went into the electronics side of things at Marconi and Plessey. I opted for an Aeronautical Apprenticship with The MoD, and qualified five years later with a TEng CEI AMSLAET set of letters to carry about.

Every year that firm took on another 25 to 30 new apprentices and I don't think more than one or two failed to complete the training.

Looking back, most of my school friends that took the option of a non-engineering career are now dead, some quite a while ago, so all the extra stress (money) didn't do them a lot of good it would appear.

The remaining few that did chose their careers wisely are all still with us. Personally I stayed with the MoD for 29 years on the Aero side until they decided that they couldn't afford to keep all the Civil Servants, so the Technician Engineers had to go.

Fortunately I was offered a training position looking after those same apprentices and now I'm part of a large company thet sees the training and education of some 400 apprentices a year in the Nuclear, Rail and other industries (Jaguar /Landrover, Volkswagen / BMW to name a couple).

So it would appear that the 'Engineer' Industry is getting stronger and I am proud to be known as one.

I do remember some while ago someone mentioning Environmental Engineers - we used to call them Gardeners

Quite, mine as well. "Shareholders sucking billions out of society"? In the 1960s over half of all shares were in private hands but, despite Thatcher's encouragement to private shareholding, only about 20% are now in private hands. The rest are held chiefly by pension funds, insurance companies, and the like. They pay our pensions which we spend and keep the economy going.

"I think I should point out that although I am prepared to mix with you inferior 'Engineers' I am a 'Scientist'.

Sorry to disappoint you but Scientists seem to get an even worse press than Engineers and are paid even less.

Russell.

I worked as a machinist at one engineering Gulag, where after being handed a particularly nasty job to make I quipped to the engineer next to me that I must have done some really bad in my last incarnation, to which his sage like reply was"all engineers did something really bad in their last incarnations!"

Its not just the school system that's wrong. its the complete lack of industry. I left school in 1973 in Bristol. there was rolls Royce, ICI, water, gas electric company's, bus company the metal works, carbon black works and the chocolate factory all looking for trainee engineers. Filton alone had around 3000 lads per years filling the tech collages. that's all gone and never to return. is it any wonder that the country is on a down ward path. lads followed their dads. now all they follow is the dole lane. sad very sad.

I have worked in engineering for 40 years and have been proud to do so. I have always received good recognition for my profession. Without engineers we would still be in the stone age. No cars, internet, mobile phones, etc.

Would you walk over a bridge designed by an engineer or a scientist ? Or fly in a plane designed by an engineer or a doctor ? Engineers rule !!!!!!

.

You can have a doctor of engineering, I know two very well. One is actually Dr. Dr. Dr. John and then last name.

But being modest he omits two of the doctorates.

The first Dr has actually built her own plane from a set of plans - no kit AND flown the Atlantic ocean  solo in this single engine sports plane. Not once but three times.

Edited By John Stevenson on 22/12/2014 21:15:46

The original quote was "would you walk over a bridge designed by an engineer or an accountant" but some of the above posts were talking about scientists. My "oldtimers" disease kicked in and I miss quoted the saying. (scientists and doctors also rule)

I think one possibility is that the 'Lads' don't want to move away from their 'Dads'

Most of our apprentices come from the other ends of the country and some from as far as Europe.

I agree that the days of shipbuilding and the like have ended, but things have moved on and there are still many that want to make a career out of modern engineering.

Some of these guys (and gals) are just sixteen and to leave family and friends in search of a career must be one hell of a wrench and should be applauded.

No dole lane for them.

I don't know if you mean engineering trade or engineering (the boffin's with the slipsticks who work with paper instead of metal). Anyway, i went into the engineering trade as a fitter/turner, done the four year apprenticeship and while doing that i did evening courses in mig , tig and arc welding (all to asme ix standard) , pipe fitting, fluid power, cad/cam and a few more i forget, then a few years ago i did a degree course in maintenance engineering. My sister on the other hand left school and did a six month course in being a receptionist, while doing that she did courses in ecdl and general book keeping, she was finished these courses after about 18 months.

Guess who earns more ? Well it ain't me, in fact at my last job interview when the interviewer asked me what salary i would want (average industrial), he laughed and said (don't want to get into ukip territory here) that he could have two polish tradesmen for the same salary ( which wasn't ott).

A friend of mine's grandson left school last year and asked my opinion of him going to serve an engineering apprenticeship in a train maintenance works, i talked him out of it and he went into computer software instead. There he won't have to work in cold dirty surroundings with an oik with the manner of a boar pig supervising him and all for a pittance of a wage.

Engineering is a great hobby but a complete joke as a profession (imho).

There is another side of the coin because everyone here has mentioned working for someone.

What about the other side of the coin and working for yourself to [a[ make it more interesting and [b] get bigger ulcers.

Just joking.

But seriously i have been self employed most of my working life, firstly in running a truck garage for 19 years and when that stated going thin because of lease hire etc, backed out and went back engineering but in the repair trade.

To be honest I have had a very interesting and quite lucrative life, also helped a lot by getting a decent interpretation of the tax laws as they stand in this country. Note I didn't say pay no tax, I said their interpretation of them.

It's now got to the time of life where I want to back off a bit and settle to do what I want but work is still so good that it's hard to get to this point.

Literally swearing and cursing at customers just makes them laugh more and send more work, some on here who have been in my shop can attest to this. According to the news etc we have just had or are coming out of a recession ? What's a recession ? In the repair and maintenance field when money gets tight you just mend more instead of buying new.

So would I recommend going into engineering ? Yes but work for yourself.

I've spent my working life in Engineering, in various roles, draftsman, work study engineer, process engineer, manufacturing engineer, production engineer. Pretty much all my working life was spent "doing courses". None at degree level, but I ended up with the Australian equivalent of an HNC with lots of endorsements, mech eng, naval architecture, management etc etc.

Quite honestly, apart from the last couple of years, I loved it. I've always been interested in engineering and still am. However I can't imagine any youngster starting out staying the course without a passion for engineering, it's simply to difficult and complicated. I've always looked on it as a vocation rather than a job.

It's such a shame that in the UK, USA, Australia Engineering as a profession is held in such low esteem, but then re-reading the original post it seems that it's not a new phenomenon.

cheers

Bill

To add to the misery expressed here I have memories of a great mate of mine, when we were both in our early twenties 50 odd years ago, analysing the low esteem in which engineers are held as being due to the motor car.

His thought was that because many people at that time could do some maintenance on their cars, Morris Minors etc. which those people regarded as engineering then engineers must be simple. Once an idea takes root how do you shift it?

I might add he was an engineering apprentice with Metal Box, of sad but glorious memory.

Jerry

It took a world war for ships engineers to be given officer status and today a chief engineer is probably better qualified than the captain but I would say that as an ex engineering officer.

Ships engineers have to be flexible and innovative as you can not call the AA in the middle of the pond.

Bob

I do wonder what would have happened if I hadn't had such a brilliant biology teacher and the decent physics teacher hadn't been off for a year. My original ambition had been to get to the RAE at Farnborough and put crashed aeroplanes back together, but I ended up doing one of the first specialist courses in environmental biology and taking rats apart instead.

Neil

Plenty of rats that need taking apart(mainly of the 2 legged type).

Ian S C

For my part i entered an engineering apprenticeship after leaving school, went into the army, studied biochemistry at University and now work in global quality control. There are no engineers left in our area and less and less scientists. No industry! No future?

Yes, I went there in 1975 - Andrew

Well I never. As you might (should!) recall, I was there with you...didn't we even do a project together - a FM amplifier as part of a FM tuner frequency display that didn't want to stop being an oscillator IIRC?

Edited By Martin Millener on 23/12/2014 11:58:58