If I were ever to become an engineer, I think that I’d either become a system engineer, an electrical engineer, or a biomedical engineer. All of these jobs are just so versatile and so incredibly interesting, that it’s hard to even start!
I’m going to begin by talking about electrical engineers. Basically, they are all things tech. They study and use the power of electricity and electro magnetism. There work can be incredibly diverse, including making the electrical systems that help your car show you your location, to building the control systems on a space ship.
There are at least 8 different disciplines that all involve electric engineering. Of course, if I went into detail on all eight of them, I’d take up the entire page, so I’m going to do a rundown of some of them.
Electrical engineers can be part of power engineering, which basically deals with the creation, distribution, and the transmission of, you guessed it, electricity. They also work on designing related devices, such as new battery types or better cables. They may also work on maintaining the power grid, which is basically a cheap electricity network.
The one field that you’ve all been waiting for, electrical engineers can go into the discipline of electrical engineering. Gee, who would’ve thought about that, huh? Although, this field isn’t just about creating and designing technology, it’s more specifically centered on creating the circuits that power these amazing devices.
Microelectronic engineering is incredibly similar to the discipline that I mentioned above, only that it’s on the micro scales. Instead of using tools that end in tiny tips that are can be operated manually, in this case, you have to use precise machines ending in razor-edge tips, that are capable of doing things on the micro-level. This just requires you knowing where the things are going to be laid out, and pressing a couple of buttons to manipulate robots so that they get the job done properly.
Another field that electrical engineers could go to is called signal processing, which basically deals with signals. Kind of obvious, no? Back to the topic. Engineers can either manipulate or process analog signals, in which the signals vary according to the information, or digital signals, in which case the signals vary according to the discrete value assigned to the information.
The fifth discipline is called computer engineering, and this is requires you to build computer software and or the computer itself. Pretty straightforward, and it pretty similar to computer science.
The final discipline that they could go into is called control engineering. Control engineering basically means designing systems, and then adding controllers to make those systems behave in a certain manner, like installing buttons and making sure that when you press one, they do the correct thing.
The study of electricity and magnetism was first pioneered in the 19th century, with great contributors such as Michael Faraday, George Ohm, and James Clerk Maxwell. The job in it of itself became a profession in the late 1900’s.
As you can probably tell, the work that an electric engineer might do on any particular day is so incredibly varied, that it took up most of this page, and I didn’t even mention all of them. I said that there are at least 8 different disciplines, not 8 exactly. That’s part of the reason why I’d want to become an electric engineer above the rest.
A biomedical engineer is my second-most favorite type of engineer, because they are just so helpful to the healthcare industry! Their work is also incredibly diverse, but it all centers on medicine and helping other people live.
They can help advance healthcare treatments, including diagnosis, monitoring patients, and therapy. Most of the work that they do is researching and developing new techniques and devices.
There are multiple sub-categories of biomedical engineering, the first one I’m going to mention is called bioinformatics. They develop tools and software to better understand biological information. This combines engineering, math, science, and computer science.
Onward, the second category is called biomaterial engineering. It basically studies how matter or surfaces interact with living tissues. It’s a very young science, only about 50 years old, and has experienced strong growth, with many companies funding the development of new materials and products.
Tissue engineering is up next on our list, and to me is very fascinating. These sorts of engineers work on developing artificial organs (remember, skin and muscle are also organs), and help patients get the organs that they need in organ transplants. Although some organs, or maybe most, haven’t yet been developed artificially, some achievements include growing solid jawbones and tracheas (windpipe).
This next field is very similar to tissue engineering, but slightly different. Genetic engineering instead might deal with tissues, but they mostly deal with genes. They can modify or manipulate them. They can also work on flora, increasing the output of some crops, and in could in fact produce synthetic human insulin, something I think is a grand achievement.
Two more fields that include biomedical engineering include neural engineering and pharmaceutical engineering. Neural engineering uses engineering techniques to help understand, enhance, replace, and/or repair neural systems. Pharmaceutical engineering is a field that helps develop new drugs, as well as develop new pharmaceutical technology.
Engineers might also work on a wide array of medical devices, which is an incredibly broad category. Medical devices can be defined as healthcare products that don’t achieve their result through chemical or biological means.
You have, for example, bionic engineers, who created artificial body part replacements such as legs and arms. You have implants, which are close to bionics, but can replace any missing body part, including organs and teeth.
There are so many other sub branches of biomedical engineering, that I just don’t have the time to cover them all, and instead am going to move on to systems engineering.
Systems engineering, in a very broad term, is dedicated to the development and or repair of complex products, such as trains, cars, power plants, computer chips, etc. Systems engineers’ main job is to make a product with certain functions, and consolidate all of those functions into a single, working unit.
A lot of this work is hypothetical, because the cost of assembling all of the parts in real-time and make sure that everything works right might take too much time effort, and money for it to be practical, and the entire venture goes belly up.
This is where systems engineering software shines the brightest, because here, you can design everything to the last detail, and make realistic tests for everything to check and see whether or not everything works the way that it should. This save thousands of dollars, as well as time and effort.
The subfields of system engineering include mechatronic engineering, configuration management, control engineering (something I already covered), industrial engineering, and a whole bunch of other sub fields. I’ll pick and choose from them.
First, let’s talk about mechatronic engineering first. It’s very similar to systems engineering, dealing with dynamical systems to form tangible constructs and objects. In this case, they are near-nigh one and the same. Where they differ though where they focus. Mechatronics engineering focuses a lot on the details, but systems engineering focuses more on the larger generalizations and relations.
Configuration management is the next one up on our list, and is practiced a lot in the defense and aerospace industries. It is a broad, systems-level practice, which basically makes sure that the entire project’s goal is achieved using the desired items, making the entire development process viewable, and making sure that the requirements for the construct are achieved.
Industrial engineering is going to be next, since I had already discussed control engineering under a different category. It’s incredibly tied to business, and basically concerns the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, machines, knowledge, equipment, power, and a lot more stuff.
The final category I’m going to talk about from systems engineering is software engineering, which basically means that the engineers are programmers that are focused on creating systems-based software.
So that’s my essay on three engineering fields that I’d probably like to be in.
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