Would you encourage your children to become Engineers?

What happened to your career as a pro athlete ? 

Nice! Smart move buying one back then. Every couple of years I look at Omega watches but kept putting it off, thinking there are other uses for the money, but the prices keep going up too : ( I think prices are easily double what they were 10 years ago.

It was called "The watchmaker's apprentice', it's on Apple TV but maybe there's a version elsewhere too. 

It's definitely one incredible labour of love to be able to make such a device from scratch. I also liked reading about John Harrison, in the book 'Longitude' by Dava Sobel. That's a really enjoyable book.

This looks like a great channel, I may watch some of this tonight : )

Prices have gotten way, way out of hand and for the most part aren't worth it given very few manufacturers genuinely make their own movements.  I wouldn't buy an Omega now, even second hand they're over priced in my opinion.  I should know, I just sold a 20 year old Seamaster for £500 more than I bought it for brand new!  I read that book very recently as well as "The Marine Chronometer" by Rupert Gould, both are very good - a lot more history in Gould's book.

I'm still playing sports many decades later but its all for fun and amateur trophies - no cash.

I have pretty much always wanted to be an engineer and have never regretted the choice. I tried to interest my children but also supported their other interests. Neither chose engineering but they would not have enjoyed it I think and pursued their chosen fields with fervor. I’m doing the same with grandchildren when they show interest. I try to make it fun for them. I’ve seen young people pushed into careers they didn’t want to be in or enjoy and it often doesn’t end well. But then, I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be an engineer :-)

I hope I never lose the knack. 

Having worked with many students over the years I have come to the conclusion that engineers are born, not made.

I say that because there are specific personality traits that make a good engineer.

You cannot teach those traits.

I have seen a lot of students take the classes and some of them do fine with the school work problems, but when they started real work, they found that they just did not have the intuitive insight needed to be a good engineer. I steered many of those people into management. They had enough understanding of engineering principles to help manage those people who did the actual engineering work.

So if I see someone with the right traits for engineering, I encourage them to take up the task of becoming an engineer.

Otherwise, I try to see what aptitude the person has and work with them to find the right profession for their personality.

Yes - I encouraged all my kids to be an engineer, be a badass like dad and mom (yes both are EEs) , it was an no brainer. Regardless of their final destination in life, all my kids naturally can wire houses, do auto maintenance, use DVMs and troubleshoot equipment, and are masters with electrical tape & duct tape.

The kids were rebellious tho about being engineers professionally. No way. No how.

2 sons did end up engineers on their own volition.

My 3rd son studied communications (as a user) and is a sports media director for a local university. He does have the coolest job tho of all the kids, hob-knobbing with famous college athletes and coaches and is occasionally on the TV during away games. Home games -> the director is in the control room. He has an advantage over others that he likes work on the equipment.

My daughter didn't appreciate engineering either, went into nursing. She beat us all - nursing is really a lucrative field right now. She is better on house maintenance than her hubby. 

I have a 4 year old grandson that is registered in my Early Engineer Training Program with a plastic gear set & legos. He loves my robots. It wont hurt my feelings if he would choose another vocation path, because his youth engineer training will last a lifetime.                

I'd agree that steering your kids is pointless. I encourage them in anything I can and see where that takes them.I'll show them how to code, use power tools, etc. If I make sure there's nothing in their way and that they have the opportunity, then the rest is up to them.

My boys are 11 and 9 and already their interests are surprising me. The one I felt was more techie is into English and the more boysterous one is developing a real flair for maths. That may well change, of course.

DAB said:

I have seen a lot of students take the classes and some of them do fine with the school work problems, but when they started real work, they found that they just did not have the intuitive insight needed to be a good engineer

I suspect it's the difficulty of teaching self-reliance and deductive reasoning, or as some people call it, critical thinking.

A lot of establishments are very good at teaching the ability to consume information and relay that on demand, but there are very few assessments in ways of teaching and assessing critical thinking to apply and understand what they've read.

It's possible that experiences outside of academia or training have forced them to learn this skill.

Sometimes it's associated with not being afraid to make a mistake, and even suggesting this opens it up to an entire line of conversation over 'play' and culturing a 'safe environment' to make mistakes and learn from them to be comfortable with critical thinking.