Getting Acquainted with Engineering (ca. 1950s)

[Music] oh that briefcase contains some papers that are going to make some young men Mighty happy the man who carried it was Personnel representative of one of the largest corporations in America he came here to the college to interview some young men who will graduate in engineering this June he'll take those records and his impressions of some of the men he has met back with him with other members of the Personnel Department he will review each case carefully when they finish they will offer some men an all expenses trip to the plant by air to look it over firsthand before signing up that's backside front isn't it a job looking for a man these engineering jobs are important ones Jobs worth doing jobs that will give a lot of satisfaction when they're well done these jobs are looking for young men with ability the demand is greater than the supply and it looks as if it will be for at least another 10 years the danger in this situation is that many high school graduates their eyes filled with the glamour of the professional engineer and the size of his paycheck may plunge into professional engineering training without the proper background without the aptitude without the genuine interest without the will to put in the necessary work that this is a real danger is shown by the fact that at one college of 10 boys who start an engineering course four drop out by the end of the first year it's pretty much the same story at other colleges well perhaps their time and their money is not all wasted but it could have been spent more wisely a second and more important danger in this shortage of Engineers is that many young men who are qualified and suited to the field will get away because they are not aware of their aptitudes and abilities or because they have an inaccurate idea of what an engineer does or simply because they never thought of it this is a real danger too because our best insurance against war is our national strength National strength in this mechanized era depends on industrial strength and that depends on having a supply of the trained people who translate ideas into Machinery structures and products on Engineers so we'd like to have you think about engineering we hope to show you that engineering is a whale of a broad profession and has in it room for more widely differing people than you may realize we hope to show you that there are scientific ways to discover whether you have the abilities to succeed in engineering whether your interests lie in the fields of engineering and whether you have the necessary grit to make the grade if you find that you are qualified and interested it will be up to you to prepare yourself in high school to enter an engineering college with a running start let's begin with the scientific testing program we mentioned even if your school is in a position to provide every pupil testing and counseling it will still be worth your time and the modest cost to make use of the testing facilities of some college or university your own State College University Teachers College and many private schools have fine testing facilities take a tip from Bill who decided that if he was determined to enter a technical field he ought to have technical advice as to whether it was a wise move he had already taken the battery of tests at the college and had come back for what he considered as near a verdict as he ever wanted to face he could see the counselor was prepared for him and you could hardly blame him for being n this hi Bill Mr Colin Hi how are you do I get to take engineering well we're not here to tell you whether you can take engineering or not but we have some test results there that'll help you make up your own mind okay why don't you pull up a chair here Bill we'll plot this on the board and you'll get an idea of what it looks like well first of all your general intelligence and with that your High School record now you see these are both well above average and roughly equal that's good you mean it's good because they're equal suppose your High School record had only come to about this point now that would mean that although your ability was good you hadn't used your ability to its best advantage in high school if a guy's lazy in high school he's probably going to be lazy in college and that kind of guy will not get through engineering he'll either drop out himself or he'll be asked to drop but those two tests means I can get through college okay huh well I think you can do better than just get through Bill let's take a look at your aptitude tests those were the tests I worked yes that's right I didn't get through them all well actually we wouldn't expect you to finish them all if you did and if everyone finished them we'd have no basis of comparison now your verbal aptitude was only about average your computational aptitude is well above average now on Space relations wasn't that the one that looked like a lot of blueprints yes that's right that was the test where they showed you a box taken apart in sections and you had to determine what the box would look like put together again space relations quite High Mechanical Aptitude very good but that means I ought to take engineering doesn't it it oh not so fast Bill we ought to get a look at your interest pattern first but I know what I'm interested in I'm interested in mechanics and I'm good at mechanics too wait a minute bill that's not all it takes just because a guy likes the monkey with the motor in his car doesn't mean he's an engineer maybe it means he's an auto mechanic the aptitudes and interest that you just mentioned are more typically associated with success in mechanical trades than success with in engineering frequently the guy who takes engineering because he likes to Tinker around with automobiles would have been wiser to become an auto mechanic we think it would be better for him to succeed as a mechanic than to fail as an engineer well what does it take to be an engineer well Bill we've found that the best Engineers have aptitudes in math and in mechanics as well as sound interest in mechanics math and in science more and more engineering is becoming a scientific field rather than just strictly a mechanical field and the best Engineers are also strong in literary and verbal abilities well let's see the rest of the results okay Bill we'll put the rest of them on the board a mechanical interest High computational interest High also scientific interest very high literary interest low artistic interest surprisingly high but it does mean I could be a good engineer doesn't it you're really determined to be an engineer aren't you Bill well the pattern looks pretty good you look pretty much like an engineer there's one thing bill that you're going to have to watch though your ability in the communication artarts is better than is your interest you're going to have to pay real close attention and work hard in those courses that teach you to speak directly and write clearly well why is that because you have to write reports as an engineer and when you write reports you have to make them clear because just as a newspaper man is writing something for someone to read and understand you as an engineer have to do that the the easier you make it for them to understand the better impression you'll make as an engineer let's look into these a little more thoroughly of course not all good engineering profiles are exactly like bills but with those profiles and the test back of them testing services are able to give you a lot of reliable help in picking the right vocation so take advantage of that help but aptitude interest and ambition Aren't Enough unless you're a glutton for punishment you should have a good high school preparation in order to take advantage of College engineering courses so when your high school counselor tells you you should be able to do good work in math and take all you can get you should be able to do good work in chemistry and physics and take both of them if they're offered and you must be able to do good work in English too when he tells you that you believe him now what about this field of engineering itself what's it like what does it have to offer perhaps you believe that with your personality engineering is the last profession that could satisfy you let's take a look at several boys as different as they can be and see what they found out about engineering here's their class it may not be just the same size as yours but our Engineers come out of classrooms just like yours all over the country some girls take engineering but it's not a common thing so let's eliminate the girls then let's eliminate those with great averages below a c those with definite interests in other fields and those with aptitudes that fit them for some other work there you have it four candidates who have the stuff to make it let's look at them individually Bob's a pretty quiet person he's known as a brain and prefers physics to football why and how do things work this is the type of problem that stimulates Bob's Natural Curiosity when someone mentions engineering to Bob he imagines something like this get that stuff up here move that shovel over put it there what's the matter with you riveters get those kids out of here Bob doesn't think he would fit into such a situation Bob's in ination has given him an idea that is out ofd and incorrect because engineering does have a kind of job that will suit Bob you see whether you go into mechanical electrical chemical civil or any other branch of engineering you will find that your job Falls in one of these three broad classifications research and development management sales or production now research is probably made to order for Bob and it's an expanding field these figures represent Engineers employed in research and development in 1941 177,000 in government employment 62,000 in industry and 8,000 in universities and colleges in 12 years the government almost doubled the number industry doubled theirs and the universities tripled their numbers in these fields research was made for Bob he would like this phase of ceramic engineering for instance helping to build a racetrack not a model but the real thing a ceramic racetrack for electrons it is the heart of the synchrotron which is used for nuclear research but research and development is not limited to the purely theoretical Fields research followed by development enters into building the everyday tools with which Americans make their livings how long have we charted our way by seant readings depending on clear skies to find out where we are the radio seant is a product of research and development it tracks the sun all day rain or shine exactly how do you find out how to build a better plow Engineers don't guess about anything they can measure what happens to a plow when it plows it's up to the research and development man to find out and to apply his findings towards making a better one modern industry can't wait for inventions to happen research and development is geared to find new products and methods constantly and Bob The Brain Trust can find a job that will challenge him one he will like in this phase of engineering there's nothing shy about Don he's self-confident personable sociable he's got a lot of friends he's pretty good at public speaking when Don thinks of engineering he imagines something like this a drafting room is the place where Engineers plans are processed it's an important Place some like it very much and others insist that it's a very good place to start out Don doesn't think he'd like it maybe not nevertheless engineering offers Don other jobs that will Challenge and use his social abilities and varied interests let's see what Don's place in engineering looks like a good salesman must know his product and that of his competitors he must know the whole field that's more than ever true for the man who must supervise a sales force or work with Distributors it's not hard to see how valuable an engineering background can be in sales work this is a s of engineering that has never occurred to Dawn before for instance how can an engineer help sell Rock Crushers in a highly competitive situation what about the product crushed rock can you improve it research shows that an angular form in the crushed rock aggregate it's called is better than a flat or sliver form the angular aggregate is less likely to slide around under the loads placed on it what do you do to get a higher percentage of the angular type from your crushing machines the impact Crusher is developed you study it in slow motion pictures some 300 100 times slower than normal the Hammers break rock and throw rocks together hard enough to break them the product has a high percentage of the desired angular form and your sales effort gets a shot in the arm but manufacturers in a competitive field can't stand still what are the problems of the contractor the man who is your customer hauling costs him a lot of money when a big job is a long way from the plant so the management sales force calls for a portable Rock Crusher that can be moved close to the job a management decision based on engineering estimates work imagination and Engineering knowledge pay off in profits as the sales engineer points out the Improvement to the costc conscious businessmen who buy the Machinery Don has a lot of imagination he Prides himself on that and in engineering there are jobs that will keep him right on his toes he would like that in other words there is a career in engineering that would fit Don while Don is the extroverted type of individual Paul in the same class is known as the strong silent type he's a big guy an athlete and goes along without attracting much attention until somebody wants to get something done then they call on Paul Paul knows his uncle as a chemical engineer who got into research and when Paul imagines himself as an engineer he sees himself in a smelly Place full of glass where he'd feel out of place in this although his uncle finds it fascinating but there is a part of engineering that is just as good a fit for Paul as other parts were for Don and Bob production engineer the man between the materials yard and the delivery yard he's got to know how to keep quality up and costs down one job for a production engineer might be to design huge fixtures that will hold tons of steel in place while it is welded or it might just as readily be providing an environment where flight simulators can be assembled work where the ordinary dust in the air is a hazard if the production man is turning out thousands of identical units he has the problem of making the flow of materials match manufacturing capacity the flow of subassemblies match the assembly line the flow of the assembly line match demands of the sales force when items must be custom made when everyone is different it's the production engineer who plans the assembly system that will tell each worker what to do on each separate order so that the instruction sheets may be written out the necessary Parts gathered from the stock room and put together properly set and regulated to each requirement but the production engineer works not only with materials and machines he works with with men did you know that newly made cellophane is porous and must be moisture proof before it is sold it takes a machine three stories high to coat it dry it and wind it into rolls again these men must spce a new roll of cellophane under the old one while the machine is running first he makes a crayon mark on the underside of the material near the beginning of the new rooll from this Mark he cuts the cellophane away to leave a long tongue held by a piece of tape he will glue this tongue to the end of the old roll this sounds easy until you know that the new roll weighs nearly half a ton the cellophane is traveling through the machine at about 11 ft per second and if they goof the machine must be rethreaded and the eye of the needle is three stories up how about it Mr production engineer do your men have the temperament coordination incisiveness teamwork training and experience to do the job in production the respect Paul wins so readily can really pay off our fourth candidate well let's call him X his qualifications aren't going to be as easy to pinpoint as those of Bob or Don or Paul he may have the aptitudes and abilities for some field of engineering Ing and yet seem a little lazy because he hasn't found anything to interest him the simple situations outlined for Bob Don and Paul probably won't help X very much his problem is a little more complex so he will have to find more information probably on his own there are three things X can do to get a better idea of what engineering can offer him and what he can offer engineering he can take additional tests to better understand some of of his qualifications in addition he can visit teachers at any engineering College who will be happy to talk with him about his future and third he can obtain from them the names of Engineers near his home Engineers who are ready to show him what the engineer does and what it takes to be one who is X well he's a person who may find engineering a challenging profitable life's work when he discovers the many job types in this very broad field and when he realizes that he will have to make an investment in good hard work he is a person who has the intelligence and initiative to find out more about what engineering can offer him who is X maybe he's you