they hush it up but they know it
In February, I applied to the College of Engineering’s scholarship pool with my dutifully completed application and eloquent essay. Last week, I received word that I was awarded some of the scholarship funds due to my “outstanding academic achievement”, my “potential for leadership”, and unspecified “good work” (maybe they meant my attack on the CoE Tablet PC initiative?). They were probably referring to my CT articles going toe-to-toe with Starbucks, since the predominant to-go coffee cup in the various engineering buildings does not depict an image of a fertility goddess. Well, explanation isn’t necessary, and I am nevertheless appreciative for the awards.
Here below is the essay I wrote for the scholarship. The topic requested a response to a statement mentioning the steady decline in engineering students and desired possible explanations, remedies, or recommendations for the ailing field. From my response, specifically, it may sound like I am the mega-engineering nerd, but just keep it clear in the back of your mind that I can jump from industrial design to engineering in a single bound. (I REALLY AM COOL). I just happen to adamantly enjoy academia. Ok, enough.
24 Feb. 2006
Where Did The Engineers Go?
In the summer of 1969, the Apollo 11 lunar lander began sending home images and video from the surface of the moon. American efforts had led us to an ultimate engineering victory over the communists and our nation had its name inscribed into the great collection of humankind’s milestones, yet again. However, once communism collapsed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there has been a steady decline in the desire to brazenly achieve beyond our current capabilities. Sure, computers have revolutionized everything from economics to the environment, but that is often viewed as removed and sterile. An Eiffel Tower, a Great Wall, even a moon landing is tangible, to some extent, but the triumph of computers is hard to grasp or conceptualize. People have gradually become disillusioned with engineering, giving up their associations of brilliance and ingenuity for a new type of engineering labeled as an exercise for nerds. The American pastime of radically forging ahead in new fields is getting an unceremonious curtain call.
Much of the current public attention is drawn towards passive entertainment, keeping active thrills for occasional vacationing experiences, and interpreting ambition as a defect in the human ego. Universities have begun to suffer from this cynical approach within science and engineering programs as a dwindling number of students apply for those degrees. Even though there are many national or multi-national projects in play for great, technological leaps forward, the publicity for such ventures is minimal and the public-at-large is simply not concerned. Efforts like the One Laptop Per Child, the Space Elevator, and the Ansari X-Prize (now Lunar Lander Challenge) get negligible notice in the public eye; but these are the inspiring aspirations of our time! Virginia Tech is now involved in some fantastic programs for furthering human knowledge and technology (System X, numerous Fralin Biotech and Transportation Institute projects, and near-endless others) but prospective students, and even some current students, are oblivious to the front lines of VT’s research. For excitement to be gathered and a troupe of goal-oriented students to be rallied, there is a dire need for lasting academic motivation to be fostered.
A significant portion of our nation’s current technological genius is being put to work in the defense industry, thereby draining potential in other fields that could crack the human genome, finalize string theory, or develop promising and highly renewable energy systems, to name a few. Private funding is progressively supplementing the decline in federal funds, but there is still minimal momentum. In the same way that current public-prompted engineering advancements are getting no recognition, our own university’s efforts are getting the cold shoulder. Some of the zeal amongst professors should be better communicated to students. It should not be surprising that many potential engineering students abandon ship for the appealing starting salaries of business management graduates; yet, the future power-students deserve to attend fascinating lectures and leave with a zeal for prospective studies or research. Yes, this may sound trite or possibly unrealistic, but the attitudes of the insiders ultimately affect how the entire college will be perceived. In addition, university efforts to market research projects and personally recruit high school seniors are vital - if someone thinks Virginia Tech is up to nothing spectacular, this will drastically depreciate the desire for prospective students to apply. Myriad students and communities all over America have heard the Virginia Tech name solely associated with a certain field sport; the hour has come to change that perception.
Technology is the recurring theme of our time, and it deserves a better reputation. University research programs need a positive and prominent word on the street – it is important to let people know we are putting knowledge to work while we simultaneously redefine the future. The entire nation has a deficient view of science and engineering, but the efforts Virginia Tech can put forth to market, advertise, and pull in promising students is just as potent. Students and faculty excited with their work excel far more than those without that enthusiasm. And the best part about that fact? Excitement is contagious!
June 25th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Good essay - thanks for publishing. The topic deserves wider discussion than it gets.
Note that we get a trickle of email from ‘just folks’ that say, esentially, ‘right on’. These aren’t guys in engineering fields but literally just guys and gals and are stuck in mundane 9-5 jobs who take solace that we’re building an SE. Or at least we have some plans along those lines (grin).
I think the public is concerned about it all and space flight at least ignites a little romance in even the flintiest of souls. Joe and Jane Public just don’t see a place for them in the grand scheme of things.
June 25th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
Thanks for your comment. I browsed through the media on LiftPort’s website and was thoroughly impressed with the video of the prototype climbing in snow and wind at MIT.
I feel space exploration has a lot to hand society in technological advances, assuming the government gets out of the picture. With a defense budget nearing 50% of our entire national budget there is something terribly wrong with the picture. Perhaps, foremost I would hope more government spending would go towards discovering and implementing new energy production methods rather than on more and more researching telling us we’re about to cataclysmically destroy the planet due to energy harvesting.
Anyways. I appreciate you reading my essay and wish your teams the best of luck.
June 26th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Don’t forget the most ambitious task humans have ever been faced with. Curing the causes of aging and involuntary death.
http://www.mprize.org/
June 27th, 2006 at 12:20 am
I feel space exploration has a lot to hand society in technological advances, assuming the government gets out of the picture. With a defense budget nearing 50% of our entire national budget there is something terribly wrong with the picture.
Do you have a cite for that? I found various resources claiming that defense spending as a percentage of GDP has been steadilyi declining since mid-20th century, but nothing stating flat out that defense was 50% of the entire federal budget.
But the Federal government can’t - and should not - get out of the picture. It’s entirely proper that the Federal government lend a hand via R+D and exploration.
June 27th, 2006 at 12:41 am
Brian - No, I don’t. Someone referenced an approximate figure to me a few weeks ago in reference to defense spending. He said it totaled around 50% of our national budget. I just checked Wiki and the 2007 budget proposal has defense spending at about 16.6% of the total. However, that is direct defense spending and likely does not include border patrol expenses (a recent hot-topic) and whatever other wars our country may or may not engage in (or incite).
At this point, I say the government should move away from space exploration itself while letting public ventures cruise the heavens. It is becoming more and more burdensome for our American government to firmly pursue something (although, they’ll pursue WMDs until the day they die) and the public sector is much more adept at quickly adopting new technology and innovatively implementing it. For that matter, it’s the private and public sectors that are coming up with all of the new technology these days. Most of the Mechanical Engineering senior design projects here (I think all, actually) are funded entirely by corporations who want the free research, though they sometimes toss in a few fuel cells or prototype engines into the deal.
From looking at the 2007 budget proposal and seeing the energy expenditures lose over 40% of their funding is horrific. We are moments away from a global energy crisis - China is just about to explode in both technological and academic prowess and India is losing factory jobs for white collar programmers at an accelerating rate. Our country is on an ever-increasing demand for electricity but our national government grants the area a meager, let’s just call it crappy, sum for energy production (back to coal scrubbers, it seems).
Anyways. I think space exploration-related research and development is more effectively left to public and private interests. I doubt we will be having wars in orbit any time soon, so American military advances due to space research are perhaps minimized (and, frankly, most government research today clutches onto new technology and sends it straight to our military - see DARPA). But then again, maybe Saddam sent his WMDs to the moon. Now, that would be Shock & Awe.