In Canada and the US, most politicians are lawyers. But engineers are wealth generators, problem solvers and civilisation builders. We need more of them in politics. Engineers have quantitative skills and understand constrains and trade-offs. They are trained to manage within budgets. They know the value of teamwork and in many engineering projects interdisciplinary teams are necessary. They know if ethics is compromised in any public project that could lead to disasters. And believe it or not, engineers understand economics and its mathematical bases than economists and appreciate policies and procedures than lawyers; in engineering design work not all decisions are purely technical. Moreover, some say that the oldest profession is engineering; God created the universe (an engineering act). I have been an engineering academic for 45 years and I have not seen too many engineering students seeking careers in serving the public through politics. One reason could be that politicians have bad public image; being dishonest and must play dirty games to win. Another reason could be that politics attracts mostly people with low IQ who could not find jobs in professional competitive careers. And moreover few honourable people go into politics. Engineering schools in Canada and the US attract top high school students who are not only excel academically but also have a high degree of creativity. Many of them can make fine politicians. In my area of expertise, designing a microchip for a given application, the student must understand physics, chemistry, advanced math and different level of the design process. He/she must be able to use computer-aided design tools, work in a team, do a trade-off between say the speed of processing data and the energy consumed to work at that speed. He/she must meet international specs related to safety and performance. He/she must finish the design and review it and then fabricate it and test it in a given time. In the US, few presidents and VPs were engineers; Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter Spiro Agnew and John Sununu. In Canada, I do not recall any of our prime ministers was an engineer. But as society becomes more complex and dependent on advanced technology the need for engineers turned into politicians is urgent. [email protected]
