Additional: Important Requirements of Engineer

Both articles, “Introduction to the grand challenges for engineering” and “The expanding world of engineers”, provide important requirements to be in the profession of engineer. In the first article, the requirement is being daring to face challenges. In the second article, the requirement is to acquire systematic and critical thinking mind. I feel that both requirements are of equal importance. Being daring to face challenges is like the spirit required and systematic and critical thinking mind is the skill required. In order to overcome the challenges in the shortest and most economic method and be great in the profession of engineering, spirit and skill are both required.

If one only has the skill and not spirit, meaning having systematic and critical thinking mind and not dare to face challenges, current state of living and economy may remain stagnant. Engineers may just be complacent with current state. They may not dare to face challenges and search for alternative as making changes could sometimes be very troublesome. For example, in the first article it stated that “New systems for drug regulation and approval will be needed when medicines are designed for small numbers of individuals rather than patient populations as a whole”. In this example, one could know that when alteration is made, a system may have to change and it will involve many people and money. This could be a large project and might take years to complete. If one does not have the spirit and not dare to do it, even with problem identified, no changes might be made for improvement.

On the other hand, if one only has the spirit and not skill, meaning being dare to face challenges and does not have systematic and critical thinking mind, solution may be found in a non-economical way resulting the growth of economy to be less significant. Without systematic and critical thinking mind, one may not have the ability to point out the real problem and may detour in finding the most effective and economical solution. In the first article, it stated “cheaper polluting technologies often remain preferred over more expensive”. It is unwise of engineer to come up with solution which requires unnecessary spending of time and money as employer will not be pleasant with it. Therefore, with only spirit, the growth of economy may be less significant as more time and money may be spent on finding exact solution and reputation of engineer will not be good.

With both skill and spirit, meaning having systematic and critical thinking mind and being dare to face challenges, solution to challenges could be found in a quicker and more economical way. This will enable economy to grow at a faster rate resulting engineers to have higher reputation. In conclusion, both systematic and critical thinking mind and being daring to face challenges are of equal importance to the profession of engineer. Only with both, one could then make great accomplishment and improve economy.

Task 1: Most Important Challenge to the Profession

From the article, “Introduction to the grand challenges for engineering”, I feel that the most important challenge is the sustainability of civilization’s continuing advancement in term of energy. With the world getting more advances, demand of energy is higher. Energy is consumed largely in the form of electricity and petroleum.

Advance of technology has created high dependency of people on electrical appliances. Electrical appliances are very common nowadays and computer is a good example of it. Usage of computer is now very common due it being very convenient for searching of information and text editing. For the search of information, there is internet providing pool of information. As for text editing, there is Microsoft Word which editing could be done anytime without making a mess of the work. Electrical appliances have made life easier for people and thus increase the reliance of people on them resulting in high usage of electricity.

Also with the advance in technology, world has been more well developed and economy has improved. With a better economy and people being wealthier, vehicles become more affordable. Increase in transportation has resultant consumption of petrol to grow. In the recent month, price of petrol has been high. One of the reasons is because of the running down of petrol and supply being unable to meet the demand. This in turn causes a series of rise in food price due to cost of transportation resulting in higher standard of living and an economy downturn. From this event, one could see that the sustainability in the balance of supply and demand is very important.

Unfortunately, fossil fuel being the main source for petroleum and electricity is a limited resource and it is estimated to be able to last for only another fifty years. Thus research on alternative resources conducted hoping to find a suitable one to replace fossil fuel is important. Finding alternative source of energy is not easy, many problems have been faced. For example, in the case of solar energy, even though sunlight is abundant and provided lots of heat energy, the efficiency in converting the energy into useful energy like electrical energy is low. Also it is relative more expensive and requires a large amount of land area for the collection of energy. In comparing to the current major energy source, fossil fuel, alternative sources of energy like solar energy are less feasible.

In conclusion, sustainability the balance of supply and demand of energy is very important. With the increasing of demand and no solution, meaning supply unable to meet demand, world economy will be affected. Even though many alternative sources have been found, they are still not as feasible in comparing to fossil fuel. Lots of work is still required from engineers in solving the problems.