Shah Selbe argues that engineering has a character problem: media stereotypes portray engineers as introverted nerds, but history shows they're builders who shape society. Leonardo da Vinci, Ada Lovelace, and the Wright brothers didn't just invent things; they transformed how humans live and connect. Better marketing of the profession could unlock engineering's untapped potential.
Chapters
So I wanted to talk a little bit about engineering because this is something that I talk about a lot. I feel like engineering is in a little bit of a crisis of character. But thankfully now with tech being cooler, it's starting to change a little bit. But I am a firm believer in engineering's ability to change the world, and so I'll talk a little bit about that. A lot of times when people talk about engineers, like, when you see how they're portrayed in the media or on comics and stuff like that, they're always kind of the nerdy people, the introverts, the ones that don't really talk to people very well. They're the Dilbert. For those of you that are old enough in the audience to know who Dilbert is, but I want to say engineers are much more than that. Leonardo da Vinci was an engineer. I have Ada Lovelace there, the daughter of Lord Byron. She was the first computer programmer and the Wright brothers. Technology turned us into a global society. Engineers are the ones that create the society that we live in. They create the built society that you and I enjoy every single day. They give us the tools to solve humanity's greatest mysteries. They save lives. There's lots of stuff that engineering does behind the scenes that they don't necessarily get credit for. And in my opinion, there's a lot more that you can do with engineering that we haven't quite tapped into, so including marketing it better.
