America to Engineers: "HELP!"

 When it comes to engineers, I am highly biased. My parents were both engineers that met in engineering school. My brother is an engineer now too. My family and friends are a lot of people covering STEM fields. I have a few neighbors with kids majoring in engineering. But this is based on something I read today in the Washington Post. 

President Biden is trying to bring manufacturing back to America. More than one Biden-signed piece of legislation will require engineers to accomplish. We need engineers for chip design thanks to the CHIPS act. The Infrastructure Act will require structural engineers for road design and mechanical engineers for electric vehicle design. These are just some examples but, the bottom line is, American workers can't build back better without the engineers who design the "better" part!

There is another reason for this shortage. For a long time, engineering jobs went overseas due to cheaper labor. That meant less people saw that as a stable field to go into. Did the jobs leave first or were there fewer engineers first? That might depend on the part of the country the business is in. 

But we can't ignore a different reason. Engineers is hard to study and hard to do. It's fulfilling work and does pay well. But it's hard and less people think of it as "fun." That actually connects to different articles I read in the Washington Post recently. They did a study on job satisfaction based on majors. People who majored in the easier fields that make less money were a lot more likely to regret their major. STEM majors were much more likely to be happy with what they majored in. STEM just pays a lot better. 

Zach wants to be a type of civil engineer called a structural engineer. It's about how nature interacts with structures so you can build and design better and safer structures. With the focus on climate change and how natural disasters are destroying infrastructure, this is a crucial field right now. 

My dad worked in research and development. I got to spend the day with him for a "take your daughter to work" day. I even got to help a little with something he was working on. He still holds some patents 18 years after retiring. He was always designing new things to improve on what he had previously designed. Today, his designs have been improved on by younger engineers. It's creation to make lives better. 

My family has always been proud to be engineers. They work/worked hard. But they are proud of what they accomplished. We wouldn't have Fios if my mom didn't work on the original design for fiberoptics before retiring. That's big! I hope more people decide the pride from the work is worth the work being harder. Because America has an engineer shortage!