Reading Reaction #1: Jenny Brooks

Juan C. Lucena’s article, “National identities in multinational worlds: engineers and ‘engineering cultures,’” was the first article I have read that introduces the importance of understanding international engineering from a liberal arts point of view. To many within the United States, engineering is a profession that is only accomplished by receiving a degree from an accredited university. However, as this article states, on an international level that is not the case. In many different countries the title of an “engineer” is established with little education, but years of hands on experience. This fact concludes that individuals of these countries are under a false image off the qualifications of being an engineer at an international level, since each place is different. As a result, Lucena describes the importance of engineers to understand “the main goal of engineering cultures is to help engineering students learn to work with people who define problems differently than they do” (5).

Even though specific cultures have been evident for long periods of time, there is the misconception that they never change or that everyone in that culture is the same. These socially constructed images are what create racial classifications and the different levels of privileges that are distributed. While these dominant images are constructed in society, peoples reactions are what can be encouraged to change, just as an engineers understanding of the culture they are working in can be adjusted. Through a liberal arts perspective “engineers [can] understand what it means to be an engineer in different countries [and] can address the problem directly” (7). I believe that this view is vital to an engineer’s education, may it be through a university or apprenticeship, because it forces an engineer to consider the fact that their work may or may not be beneficial to the local people depending on their unique circumstances. If an engineer has not learned about the locations history, culture or people and does not involve these aspect into his work ,he his not completing his job to what I consider a professional level.

In addition to Lucena’s article I found Angus Buchanan’s paper, “The Life-Style of the Victorian Engineers,” an interesting comparison to the United States history of engineers. Through extreme detail Buchanan describes the history of how engineers appeared and their work system in Britain from the very beginning. This gives an explanation of why it is so different from the system in the U.S and why so many engineers who “enjoyed the benefits of the old system were understandably reluctant to acknowledge the advantages of a system which placed more emphasis on theory than on practice” (3). I feel that this system may be more beneficial when it comes to understanding the culture of engineering. For the engineers abilities are based on their years of experience, knowledge of the area and jobs that they have worked on, instead of how many years they attended a university and how highly that university is rated. The British system may result in a more aware perspective of the engineer’s field in relation to the surrounding communities and their culture. However, Britain’s form of engineering education does not prepare their engineers at an international level any better than the system that is implemented in the U.S. Both need to incorporate aspects of each others types of learning and a global scale for the education of engineers needs to be in placed. I strongly believe the only way this is possible is to look at the field from a liberal arts point of view because then it can be universally understood.