Structural engineers are unsung heroes
theguardian.com
Structural engineers are unsung heroes
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#2"Although it might seem a sane and reasonable business, the world’s great engineers, she believes, were "very eccentric characters, all very tenacious, the sort who were cheeky at school and didn’t do what their parents wanted them to do"."
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#3"Although it might seem a sane and reasonable business, the world’s great engineers, she believes, were "very eccentric characters, all very tenacious, the sort who were cheeky at school and didn’t do what their parents wanted them to do"."
That's all very nicely put, to fit a lot of people into that mould don't you think? Very 'horoscopic'.
Everyone is disagreeable & eccentric to some extent when they were young, including the world's great engineers/theorists.
There's more to this equation, add parameter of hard work, a bit of obsession (or 'passion', whatever that is...), a bit of environmental 'push', and THEN perhaps that might yield a 'great' individual who does that one thing very well.
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#4One of the best general Engineering books I've read is 'Design Paradigms'. It's an excellent book about the importance of understanding failures in Engineering. The author is Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University, so all the examples are roads/bridges/etc.
As a Data/SWE guy, I still enjoyed reading it a lot.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Paradigms-Histories-Judgment-E...
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#5"Although it might seem a sane and reasonable business, the world’s great engineers, she believes, were "very eccentric characters, all very tenacious, the sort who were cheeky at school and didn’t do what their parents wanted them to do"."
That's all very nicely put, to fit a lot of people into that mould don't you think? Very 'horoscopic'. Everyone is disagreeable & eccentric to some extent when they were young, including the world's great engineers/theorists. There's more to this equation, add parameter of hard work, a bit of obsession (or 'passion', whatever that is...), a bit of environmental 'push', and THEN perhaps that might yield a 'great' indi…
In other news, 100% of known engineers is human.
A much more interesting piece of information would be how many people have those characteristics, but do _not_ turn out to be great engineers.
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#6This is true. While dealing with building architects on many occasions during my internship, they would say silly things like, 'Can you not just avoid this girder/beam/pillar?'
My boss would coldly say 'Do you mind removing brake pedals from your car to make it prettier'?
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#7This is true. While dealing with building architects on many occasions during my internship, they would say silly things like, 'Can you not just avoid this girder/beam/pillar?' My boss would coldly say 'Do you mind removing brake pedals from your car to make it prettier'?
I hope as you progress through your career you learn to be more respectful of diverse ideas. I'm a software engineer, I have to have discussions with designers and business people who also sometimes ask for things that just aren't reasonably doable given time and budget constraints. It's our job as professionals to explain this using a tone and words that educates others on what the technical constraints are.
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#8This is true. While dealing with building architects on many occasions during my internship, they would say silly things like, 'Can you not just avoid this girder/beam/pillar?' My boss would coldly say 'Do you mind removing brake pedals from your car to make it prettier'?
I hope as you progress through your career you learn to be more respectful of diverse ideas. I'm a software engineer, I have to have discussions with designers and business people who also sometimes ask for things that just aren't reasonably doable given time and budget constraints. It's our job as professionals to explain this using a tone and words that educates others on what the technical constraints are.
I know what your saying about tone. But a retort like that in the building trades is pretty gentle.
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#9This is true. While dealing with building architects on many occasions during my internship, they would say silly things like, 'Can you not just avoid this girder/beam/pillar?' My boss would coldly say 'Do you mind removing brake pedals from your car to make it prettier'?
I hope as you progress through your career you learn to be more respectful of diverse ideas. I'm a software engineer, I have to have discussions with designers and business people who also sometimes ask for things that just aren't reasonably doable given time and budget constraints. It's our job as professionals to explain this using a tone and words that educates others on what the technical constraints are.
> I hope as you progress through your career you learn to be more respectful of diverse ideas. I'm a software engineer, I have to have discussions with designers and business people who also sometimes ask for things that just aren't reasonably doable given time and budget constraints. It's our job as professionals to explain this using a tone and words that educates others on what the technical constraints are.
Funny. I inferred the tone as having levity. One, or both, of us is projecting.
Re: Structural engineers are unsung heroes
#10This is true. While dealing with building architects on many occasions during my internship, they would say silly things like, 'Can you not just avoid this girder/beam/pillar?' My boss would coldly say 'Do you mind removing brake pedals from your car to make it prettier'?
I hope as you progress through your career you learn to be more respectful of diverse ideas. I'm a software engineer, I have to have discussions with designers and business people who also sometimes ask for things that just aren't reasonably doable given time and budget constraints. It's our job as professionals to explain this using a tone and words that educates others on what the technical constraints are.
Architects have a bit of a rep for being prima donnas :-)