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WHY PROFESSIONALISM IS IMPORTANT TO AN ENGINEER?

 Turning one’s potential ability into reality cuts across all professions globally, however, in Uganda’s particular scenario professionalism is emphasized only by both educational and regulatory professional institutions but in reality, less attention towards professionalism is evident in all industries.

I would like to specifically tackle the engineering profession which in the most recent days has gained or attracted the highest degree of public criticism due to failures either in what their product outputs are or focusing on the rampart collapsing city building structures in the capital Kampala and other newly created cities like Fort-Portal, Mbarara, Jinja, Mbale etc. Professional practices of civil engineering are in most cases ignored by the technical tradesmen and they always forge their way out.

One would ask what exactly is the importance and relevance of Professionalism to an engineer. Engineering being a great field, a lot of traits and characteristics must be taken into consideration, and accordingly, Dean Gordon Brown said

“Engineering is not merely knowing and being well knowledgeable, like a walking encyclopedia; engineering is not merely analysis; engineering is not merely the possession of the capacity to get elegant solutions to non-existent engineering problems; engineering is practicing the art of the organized forcing of technological change. Engineering operates at the interface between science and society”.

Professionalism simply means the skill, a sense of good judgement and polite behavior expected from a person trained to do the job well either through hands on training or educational academic qualification at different levels of education.

In fact a wide range of practical aspects in the profession of engineering, include the following:

An examination of self-abilities and interests: For individuals to be successful in their profession, they must ‘fit’ well within the framework of their chosen organizations. Such a fit requires an analysis of self. The goal here is to raise the concept of self-awareness within each student such that he/she understands that their service to society, through a career in engineering, will be valuable and successful if they truly focus on the proper fit for themselves within the profession.

Leadership and management: This is based on input from leaders in the engineering industry especially design, consulting, and construction management.

Organizational structure and theory: The concept of ‘line positions’ and ‘staff positions’ is also introduced. In addition to introducing these types of structures, each is discussed and examined for positive and negative aspects. Various forms of organizational structures are also related to various types of organizations in the private and public sectors.

Management of self: This is stressed by focusing on three specific and related aspects: self-driven responsibility, time management, and career planning.

Management of others: Interpersonal skills are taught as the ‘keys to successes. The key concept is that effective management of others places their needs above and beyond the manager’s needs. If engineers have the technical ability to conceptualize, design, build, and operate without the ability to communicate effectively, their opportunities to move forward into management and leadership positions may be significantly reduced.

Communications (verbal and written): In many instances, program and/or project failure is linked to poor communication. Although numerous means of instant communication are currently ever present, this problem still persists but need solid suggestions to solve it. There are five forms of communication in the engineering profession which are (in order of precedent): listening, speaking, writing, visual aids, and calculations.

Teams, groups, and group thinking: Based on input from numerous professionals in the engineering field asked to offer insight regarding these issues, we can conclude that, to a substantial degree, the current and emerging engineering culture throughout the industry is team-oriented. Teams, or groups, of professionals from diverse professional backgrounds are tasked with achieving project or program goals.

Project management: Leaders and managers, are defined and identified in the group organization charts, are responsible for defining   project tasks, assigning individual responsibilities along with task durations, and completion dates. The interaction among the leader, the manager, and the producers is emphasized.

Ethics in engineering: Although ethical behavior seems to be inherent it is emphasized here. The concept of ethical behavior is by discussing two general approaches to ethics: utilitarianism and rights-based ethics.

Marketing professional technical services: in the ever-changing business environment, engineers may be involved with proposal preparation, conceptual presentations, and the marketing of their organizations to procure future projects. Therefore, professional services marketing is introduced

A global view of the emerging engineering: Therefore, the emerging global nature of the engineering marketplace is stressed as the future environment in which young engineers will find themselves. The internet and the ease through which verbal and written communication can take place has allowed for engineers to consider employment opportunities worldwide. Such opportunities will expose young engineers to others societies, other cultures and other ways of accomplishing goals. Not only geographically, but functionally as well, emerging engineers may find themselves in a wide range of initial positions in which they must strive to function successfully.

“Regardless of an Engineer’s Registration, Practicing License, Certification or Charter of a particular field, Professional Engineers should exhibit Competence, Knowledge and Skills as they hold to standard of ethics with integrity” Three vital characteristics of a Professional Engineer which I wish to share in this article which are Competence, Safety and Ethics.

Competence: Where she noted it that an engineer who haphazardly throws numbers together when say calculating the strength of wood or steel when building a house or designing a crew displays lack of competence. 

Safety: where she urges that the engineer who disregards safety requirements courts disaster especially to those who come in contact with products. 

Ethics: Since the Public and Clients rely on the accuracy and honesty of an Engineer’s design and calculations. She also adds that a Professional Engineer never puts his/her personal interests against the integrity of the Profession because building jurisdictions, clients and public rely solely on his expertise.

Emerging young engineers will, in many instances, be required to lead teams of diverse professionals and manage budgets and schedules for domestic and/or international projects only a few years beyond completing their formal undergraduate education.

 

The author is a Civil Eng, Statistician and Petroleum Engineer