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Do you need to be good at building objects in engineering besides math?
I'm a junior in high school that wants to major in engineering. I'm also taking classes to achieve my major. However, I wonder if you need to be good at constructing objects in engineering besides being good at math. #engineering #math
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Raymond’s Answer
I believe you're asking if you need to be skilled at physically building things to do well in engineering? If that's not the case just ignore me. No, you don't have to good at building and making things yourself but it definitely could help. If you start small by just building with legos or making prefabricated projects (birdhouses, model cars...) it will help you with the basics. There are also many beginner projects all over the internet that can teach you step by step. You can find them by a Google search and there are free lessons on just about anything. Once you complete 1 or 2 you'll be so proud of yourself that you will want to more.
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Edgar’s Answer
It is somewhat needed but not the most important thing.
You have to take into consideration that math is a type of construction that takes place within your brain. So even if you are not that good at building things physically you will not have that much trouble learning because of this.
This happened to me at high school and now I am a Financial Engineer able to build things in my head and translate them into scripts/programs in python or R.
You have to take into consideration that math is a type of construction that takes place within your brain. So even if you are not that good at building things physically you will not have that much trouble learning because of this.
This happened to me at high school and now I am a Financial Engineer able to build things in my head and translate them into scripts/programs in python or R.
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Joseph’s Answer
It depends on the subfield of engineering. Where hands-on skills are more important are some of the mechanical engineering fields involving manufacture or maintenance. In many other fields, it's very helpful to be able to quickly prototype an idea, and some basic workshop and crafting skills are extremely helpful for that, although usually not essential. In other fields, the engineers are just designing and simulating, and there's little or no hands on work - that particularly applies where you're designing things much larger than a typical workshop, like in Aerospace engineering, architectural engineering, or fields like that.
On a personal level, there's a large crossover between my area of physics and nuclear engineering - arguably I'm sometimes acting more as a nuclear engineer than nuclear physicist. In my role, much of the engineering is large scale stuff that engineers design and simulate and never need to physically touch themselves, but there are occasionally smaller things I need like a positioning stand for a radioactive calibration source, and it's much easier when I have the skills to go straight to the workshop and put something together myself rather than putting together requirements specifications and waiting for the workshop to build when I don't have the necessary skills to do it myself.
On a personal level, there's a large crossover between my area of physics and nuclear engineering - arguably I'm sometimes acting more as a nuclear engineer than nuclear physicist. In my role, much of the engineering is large scale stuff that engineers design and simulate and never need to physically touch themselves, but there are occasionally smaller things I need like a positioning stand for a radioactive calibration source, and it's much easier when I have the skills to go straight to the workshop and put something together myself rather than putting together requirements specifications and waiting for the workshop to build when I don't have the necessary skills to do it myself.
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Mark’s Answer
lol. I fell in love with electronics as a kid. I was good at opening stereo boxes, TV sets and looking inside to see how the "jewels" i.e. IC, capacitors, resistors etc were laid out and how the the PCB was secured to the box and how would the folks assemble the electronic and then place it in the box for an assembly operations. Most of the time, when I put the device back together, I end up with a few extra screws or brackets.
So you might say I was more into destroying things that buildings. The primary job of an engineer is to solve problems and find solution for them. As an example, when you see the picture not hanging straight on the wall. Does that bothers you? Do go investigate if the bracket/ nail is put-in straight in the wall or you just let it be. if you investigate, I call you an engineer.
On the other hand, if you think of devising solutions instead of observing behaviors or doing experiments ( which is the primary focus of natural sciences such as medicine), then you know you are inclined towards sciences as opposed to engineering.
This is my 2-cents. I hope that helps.
So you might say I was more into destroying things that buildings. The primary job of an engineer is to solve problems and find solution for them. As an example, when you see the picture not hanging straight on the wall. Does that bothers you? Do go investigate if the bracket/ nail is put-in straight in the wall or you just let it be. if you investigate, I call you an engineer.
On the other hand, if you think of devising solutions instead of observing behaviors or doing experiments ( which is the primary focus of natural sciences such as medicine), then you know you are inclined towards sciences as opposed to engineering.
This is my 2-cents. I hope that helps.
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Michele’s Answer
First I am not an engineer. I will say this I should have been a mechanical engineer. I can fix or build anything it is an inherited gift my father was the same as is my son. My son explored engineering as well. The math is really forward, second is what we learn in algebra "order of operations." I think building things is a great added skill that will help you put the other skills into practice and vise versa. good luck.