Engineering Your Path

Some things just aren’t clear cut. As much as we want all of the world’s problems to solve themselves, an Engineer knows just how complicated even the simplest of things can become when you explore all of the possibilities. The thing is, this doesn’t just apply to technical situations – this mindset applies to all of life’s many interactions with the world at large. An onlooker may see you wearing a snazzy UW Engineering jacket and say, “So you want to be an Engineer, eh?” Well, no, not necessarily.

Some things just aren’t clear cut.

On Tuesday, January 25th, a small number of Engineering students had the pleasure of attending a talk by Jeff Henry (credit goes to him for the title of this article, by the way). Councilor Henry is Waterloo’s Councilor for Ward 6, as well as an active staff member here on campus and a 2004 Computer Engineering grad. His talk was about an intriguing and counter-intuitive topic – how an Engineering degree might not lead into an Engineering career. Obviously, Jeff is a politician, so how did a technical degree lead into such a social position? Interestingly enough, his job wasn’t the focus of the talk – his focus was on a certain mindset. As Engineering students we are trained to seek out problems, and try to fix them, but our focus tends to be on the technical aspect of the problem. As a result, certain social implications tend to be overlooked.

Jeff cited the Clear Lake debacle as a good example of this. This man-made lake was being filled with sediment as time wore on, causing the lake to become fetid. The residents around the lake were being driven away from their daily routines. The city stepped in, of course, and hired an Engineering firm to handle the issue. The firm analyzed the problem, and came up with a sound technical solution to the problem. What they failed to realize was that the lake was a focal point for the community. Their solution would have removed the lake entirely – nothing left for the residents to sit by and feed the ducks; nothing left for them to walk their dogs around (and not to mention the fact that the houses of at least three people would have been replaced by a river). Essentially, they fixed the lake, but they destroyed a community.

Situations like these are why Jeff went into politics. He saw the big picture, the social aspect of life around him, and what he could do to help. He saw that student voices, making up a good third of Waterloo’s voters, was being drowned out in the face of non-representative census data, and wanted to find a solution. Not every problem requires a technical solution, but the Engineering mindset of finding due procedure and logical, practical application of theory to solve problems carries over into the rest of our lives as well. So what can we do? “There may not always be a clear-cut answer,” mentioned Jeff, “but I know I’ll feel better just knowing you’re thinking about it.”