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.