Qualified Engineer

Reflecting on how designs are tested and qualified formed the idea in my head of what “qualified” means when referring to people. A rocket engine is qualified when it has gone through a specific number of mission duty cycles and has been pushed to its utmost limits to see if it will hold up to normal operations. It isn’t unheard of for parts to break under the strain. How it breaks is revealing to the engineers for how to improve the design. If it doesn’t break, all the better, the engineers know the design can handle its life cycle no problem because it has already faced the worst they could throw at it. This builds great confidence in all involved that the thing will work.

So why isn’t that applied to the engineers themselves? We go through university classes and obtain a piece of paper at the end that says we’re engineers. But no confidence has been built up for employers hiring the newly minted engineer, and more importantly, no confidence has been built up in the engineers themselves. Employers don’t care about the piece of paper; it doesn’t amount to much except financially speaking as it cost thousands of dollars and years of life essence drained. Employers want experience. They want engineers who have undergone a little of life’s testing. What if the piece of paper meant something? What if the piece of paper signified that the engineer went through qualification in the sense that they have been thrown in the fire and made it through the other side. This engineer took the worst that could possibly have been thrown at them and did not break. Or maybe they did, but here’s how they react to that sort of pressure. Here’s how they improved after that.

Instead our educational institutions give out textbook problems that don’t have any real weight to them outside of the classroom. Professors phone it in and read off of slides the textbook provides. Tests are simplified because they require the student to have equations memorized. Projects are scarce, often extracurricular, and graded with the lightest of hands. Engineering relies on the math department to weed out most students.

I’m not saying that homework and tests are unnecessary and do nothing to verify the learner’s progress. Perhaps the current educational system does provide some merit and should not be demolished completely. However, it lacks the bite to really demonstrate the mettle of the student. It provides hoops for them to jump through, but it doesn’t put them through their paces. And due to this lack of vigor, many engineers are produced and sent out to the world, increasing the difficulty one, for employers sifting through applicants for that bright individual who will make all their problems melt away, and two, for the new engineers themselves who leave the shelter of the education system to find a flooded marketplace of their peers. Since no confidence was built into the system, the only confidence an engineer has to offer is that which came from themselves that they very well may have had before even attending college. That confidence is admirable, but it does not speak of the individual’s actual capabilities as it is, in most cases, baseless at this stage in their careers.

If someone created an engine and did some basic tests but nothing further, the engine would not be accepted as ready for commercial use. There is a reason the design goes through acceptance and qualification testing: to ensure a safe product for the end user. But what tests the tester, what approves the approver, what qualifies the qualifier? What gives us confidence in the engineer? If the engineer was qualified in an analogous manner, we may find ourselves in a world where an “entry level job” does not require 2 years of experience.

Image from NASA’s test of the Saturn V’s F-1 engines.

Soar, Loser

When I started writing this, I was going to title it, “Requiem for a Dream,” and then I realized I didn’t know where that came from, only recognizing that it had to have been a title of something. I thought maybe a classical music piece but then Google showed me my error, and the plot line of the novel turned movie gave me perspective. I came to the conclusion that the title was a bit too dramatic seeing that the content would not come close to the sad circumstances following those characters. This is a sort of requiem for a dream, but it isn’t of a futureless future. This requiem holds a celebration for what is to come and a fate avoided more than a dear thing lost.

Like many others through the country and world, I recently was laid off from my all-consuming job due to the strained economy and social distancing in the wake of the corona virus. At first, I felt as if the floor was yanked away from under my feet and I had difficulty grounding myself in reality. That job had been my identity, my social life, my reason for being for 2 years and now there was a void where it used to occupy. “Where do I go now? What do I do? Time to start the job hunt.” Those were not my first thoughts. My first thoughts, when I could actually think about it and not sit there in stunned silence, were “Really? They got rid of me? I’m free?” And while it did hurt to be dumped after all the time and effort, literal blood, sweat, and tears, it also relieved me. I had been on the verge of quitting for the past 3 months, ever since there was a changing of the guard, a reorg, a new boss.

And now I wonder those thoughts, a few months later. I’ve been working on a contract with a great engineer who has become my mentor and had helped me get that job I just lost. But the contract is destined to end in another couple of months, and so I find myself in this old, familiar place of existential dread. Then he helped me come to the conclusion that this doesn’t have to be all that I am. I don’t have to write myself off and put myself in the corner, forced to stick with engineering. Before we had that conversation, I had been pondering the concept: I tried engineering, the closest I thought I would enjoy it. And sure it had it’s glamour, its pleasures. I tested rocket engines and stages, made lots of pretty lights and lots of noise. But still there was that sense of lacking, of less than happiness. And now that I had tried it successfully for a couple of years, I proved to myself that I could do it. Any action after that will not be taken because I thought I couldn’t go down that road. It is no longer an issue of “can” but rather “want.”

My boss-mentor identified that in me. Engineering does not make me excited. I used to feel something about different aspects, I felt some semblance of passion for launching rockets into space. I thought robotics were really cool. And now I can’t seem to enjoy the prospect of actually working on any of those things. My previous work was so demanding and cult-y, I wonder if it didn’t ruin dedication and enthusiasm for me. I had so little to begin with, and I threw it all at that one job.

But I did say this was a sort of celebration, didn’t I? It isn’t all doom and gloom. Recently, I’ve received tons of encouragement from my friends and family (and boss!) to pursue my lifelong dream and goal of publishing a book. I’ve held on to this hope closely since I was a child writing my first short stories with scenes stolen straight from The Matrix and The Fellowship of the Rings. For so long, I cherished the thought that I would at least self-publish, even if no one approved, even if no one read the thing in the end. And now I’m hearing my circle say, “Do it. Write. What are you waiting for?” As if I needed permission, I think to myself, and yet, it’s as if a gate had been closed in front of me and now is opened wide.

My feet stand still before this gate, and I stand there dumbfounded. I should be dashing through while I have the chance, but I find myself rooted in fear. What if I fail? What if I can’t even finish a book? What if I succeed and I do finish it but end up hating the process and find out it is also not for me? It’s the last thing I’ve allowed myself to have in reserve for what I want to do with this life. For all those reasons, there is more pressure on writing than there ever was on engineering. I knew I didn’t really care about engineering going in, but I had been raised to believe that I needed that to be able to support myself. I had that, but in the end, it was not a sure thing to support me like I was led to believe. But I knew that I didn’t have a stake in engineering, and so there was nothing to lose. With writing, I have everything to lose. I care about it, and so if I fall short, I will hurt all the more from that.

It’s a familiar tale. I’m sure you, my reader, have gone through this. We must all struggle against this fear, acknowledge it, embrace it, defeat it, if we are to accomplish bigger and better things than we ever could if we played it safe. And doesn’t that indicate that we’re on the right track? Many of us are quite good at coasting. Isn’t it time for us to soar?