I chose to focus on gender and racial diversity in American engineering and why it crucial to increase diversity within the field. White males are becoming a minority; however, the field of engineering does not represent this. American engineering has diverged from ideals of apprenticeship and creativity to a profitable industry that comes with status, money and power. My point is, not only is engineering lacking diversity but it is also lacking aspects of creativity as well.
The lack of diversity and creativity within the field of engineering is affecting the quality of engineers and the products they produce because we are in need of various/diverse perspectives in order to create the most fair and ethically/environmentally responsible products.
Wikipedia defines engineering as,
“Engineering is the discipline, art, and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize solutions to the needs of society.”
However, are Cal Poly engineers really utilizing the artistic and social knowledge that could be applied to engineering? Or are Cal Poly engineers solely using the science and math in their engineering? Could increasing diversity in the field help this? Does creativity come along with diversity?
Now these are all valid questions I plan on diving into more through interviews with Cal Poly engineers; however, my prediction would be that at California POLYTECHNIC State University engineering would be generally geared towards math and science and emphasis on social science perspective or art would be neglected.
I could be very wrong with my hypothesis but I plan on interviewing a handful of Cal Poly engineers about their personal knowledge of the field to find out. I want to pay special attention their experience with art/social science and diversity within the engineering field. I would really like to explore how the engineers feel themselves and if they think that an increase in diversity/creativity might help the field.
WM. A. WULF talks a lot about stereo-types of American engineers as being nerdy and dull. I really want to ask the engineers themselves how they confront these stereotypes and if they think there is truth behind it. My guess is there may be some truth behind it because engineering has become so profit based that many want to join the field in order to gain wealth instead of genuine interest in the subject. Through interviewing students and continuing my research I hope to confront some of the stereotypes of engineers and obstacles to achieving equality within the field.
